Though I’ve previously covered How to install WordPress in Windows Vista, that method used a BitNami stack, which comes with a few drawbacks. The method outlined in this tutorial will leave you with a perfect WordPress installation on your PC - which is great to use as a development and testing environment.
- Before you install WordPress, make sure you have WAMP (Windows, Apache, MySQL & PHP) installed. Fortunately we have a tutorial that walks you through each step of installing and configuring WAMP. Once you’ve got that done, continue with step #2.
- Click the WAMP icon in your System Tray and select www directory.
- Explorer will open the folder C:\wamp\www\. This is where your HTML, PHP and other site files reside. You’ll notice an index.php file. This a WAMP file (the one that provides shortcuts to phpMyAdmin etc). You don’t want to delete it, but you also probably don’t want to leave it titled index.php.
- Rename it to something else (for example, wamp.php).
- Now download WordPress, and extract it into the C:\wamp\www\ folder
- When you extract WordPress, it will create a folder called wordpress. If you’re using WAMP specifically for WordPress development, and you don’t want to have your blog show up at the address http://localhost/wamp (and would rather it display at http://localhost) - select all the files in the wordpress folder, cut and paste them into the C:\wamp\www\ folder.
- Now load the WAMP config screen in your browser by entering the address http://localhost/wamp.php - assuming you renamed the WAMP config file to wamp.php (in step #4).
- In the Tools section, select phpmyadmin.
- Log in to phpMyAdmin.
- To create a new database for WordPress, select the Databases link.
- In the Create new database section, enter wordpress as the database name (or something similarly descriptive) and click Create.
- Make sure you get a confirmation that the database was successfully created.
- Now enter http://localhost/ into your browser. You’ll be greeted with the WordPress “getting started” screen. Click the Create a Configuration File button.
- Review the info, and then click the Let’s Go! button.
- In the Database Name field, enter wordpress (or whatever database name you specified back in step #11). Enter root as the User Name (unless you’ve created another MySQL user) and your MySQL password in the Password field. Your Database Host should be set to localhost and the Table Prefix should remain wp_ (but can be changed if you wish). When you’re done, click Submit.
- Now click Run the install.
- A few seconds later you’ll be presented with the Information needed screen. Give your blog a title, and enter your email address in the provided fields. If you’re using this WordPress installation as a development site, uncheck the Allow my blog to appear in search engines like Google and Technorati. Click Install WordPress.
- Make note of your username (admin) and assigned password, then click the Log In button.
- Enter your Username and Password in the appropriate fields, and once again click Log In.
- That’s it! You can start writing posts, uploading/creating themes etc.
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Hi,
Just curious, which problems/drawbacks did BitNami stacks had for you? Anything we can fix?
Best regards
Daniel
Thanks for an excellent in depth tutorial. Unfortunately I can’t quite complete it.
I’ve successfully installed WAMP and on installing WordPress I’ve stopped on item 7. I have done exactly as instructed but get the message, NOT FOUND The requested URL /wamp.php was not found on this server.
However I moved on and stumbled on item 13 and get the message, There doesn’t seem to be a wp-config.php file.
I can’t get any further and would appreciate any advice you can offer please.
Best wishes
Peter Blake
Great tuts especially the one “that walks you through each step of installing and configuring WAMP. ”
Just one snag I ran into. At step 17 where I had to enter blog title and email. I click on “Install Wordpress” and nothing happens except for down in the status bar it say “Waiting for localhost…”
Do you have any ideas what’s up with that?
Ron
I love this place!!!!
Thanks a lot Ross!!!!!
I’m having the exact same error as Ron. When I click on “Install Wordpress,” nothing happens, but the status bar says “Waiting for localhost. . .”
Help?
Well..i always wanted to load WP on my desktop to experiment some themes modification, but absolutely no idea how to do it! Thanks putting this up for sharing. ^^;
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