Installing your very own PHP on your computer is actually really simple. It can save you a lot of headaches and time later on by keeping all your work on your machine when testing and then uploading to your main server after everything has been accomplished as I do. This little quick-down and dirt tutorial will show you how to install PHP on an Apache server and get everything working properly.

Before we begin you will need current version of Apache and PHP. I currently have Apache 2.2.4 and PHP 5.2.3. PHP can be found here http://us2.php.net/get/php-5.2.3-win32-installer.msi/from/us.php.net/mirror. Apache can be found here http://apache.mirror.facebook.com/httpd/binaries/win32/apache_2.2.4-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi.

After downloading both go ahead and create a new folder in your C drive to store your localhost server. It will help keep things neat and nice. Name it whatever you want but keep it simple. Once you open Apache download it will have a screen similar to this one:

For both Network Domain and Server Name, set to 'localhost'. Put any email address into the Administrators Email Address box. Make sure 'Port 80 as a Service' is selected and press Next >.

At this point Apache server is almost ready to be used. You can start it up and open a web browser with the URL to http:localhost. If working properly you will see the default index.html page in the htdocs folder. (Apache will have an icon running in the tray like shown:)

Under the Windows Vista operation, Apache will not run as normal. You need to go C:\Whatevername\bin\ and use the executable file to run Apache "httpd.exe". The little icon in the tray will not appear and you will have a black Dos window open. If you are still getting any problems you will need to access the httpd.conf file and edit it. It is located in C:\Whatevername\conf\ folder. Look for Listen 80 and change it to Listen 81. Also look for ServerName localhost:80 and change it to ServerName localhost:81. (To use must include port number in the URL like so: http:\\localhost:81 ).

The next step is to install PHP and test.