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Learn how to install Apache server with PHP and MYSQL database on Microsoft Windows. This tutorial will explain step by step how to install and configure apache server on a Windows machine with complete links for packages.

PHP and MySQL are usually associated with LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP). However, most PHP developer ( including me ) are actually using Windows when developing the PHP application. So this page will only cover the WAMP ( Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP ). You will learn how to install Apache, PHP, and MySQL under Windows platform.

The first step is to download the packages :

Apache : Apache.org
PHP : PHP.net
MySQL : MYSQL.org

You should get the latest version of each packages. As for the example in this tutorial i'm using Apache 2.0.50 ( apache_2.0.50-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi ), PHP 4.3.10 ( php-4.3.10-Win32.zip ) and MySQL 4.0.18 ( mysql-4.0.18-win.zip ).

1.Start installing the packages downloaded:
2.Installing Apache
3.Installing PHP
4.Modifying Apache Configuration
5.Installing MySQL
6.Modifying PHP Configuration File

Installing Apache

Installing apache is easy if you download the Microsoft Installer ( .msi ) package. Just double click on the icon to run the installation wizard. Click next until you see the Server Information window. You can enter localhost for both the Network Domain and Server Name. As for the administrator's email address you can enter anything you want.

I'm using Windows XP and installed Apache as Service so everytime I start Windows Apache is automatically started.
Click the Next button and choose Typical installation. Click Next one more time and choose where you want to install Apache ( I installed it in the default location C:\Program Files\Apache Group ). Click the Next button and then the Install button to complete the installation process.

To see if you Apache installation was successful open up you browser and type http://localhost in the address bar. You should see something like this :
By default Apache's document root is set to htdocs directory. The document root is where you must put all your PHP or HTML files so it will be process by Apache ( and can be seen through a web browser ). Of course you can change it to point to any directory you want. The configuration file for Apache is stored in C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\conf\httpd.conf ( assuming you installed Apache in C:\Program Files\Apache Group ) . It's just a plain text file so you can use Notepad to edit it.

For example, if you want to put all your PHP or HTML files in C:\www just find this line in the httpd.conf :

DocumentRoot "C:/Program Files/Apache Group/Apache2/htdocs"

and change it to :

DocumentRoot "C:/www"

After making changes to the configuration file you have to restart Apache ( Start > Programs > Apache HTTP Server 2.0.50 > Control Apache Server > Restart ) to see the effect.

Another configuration you may want to change is the directory index. This is the file that Apache will show when you request a directory. As an example if you type http://www.php-mysql-tutorial.com/ without specifying any file the index.php file will be automatically shown.

Suppose you want apache to use index.html, index.php or main.php as the directory index you can modify the DirectoryIndex value like this :

DirectoryIndex index.html index.php main.php

Now whenever you request a directory such as http://localhost/ Apache will try to find the index.html file or if it's not found Apache will use index.php. In case index.php is also not found then main.php will be used.

Installing PHP

First, extract the PHP package ( php-4.3.10-Win32.zip ). I extracted the package in the directory where Apache was installed ( C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2 ). Change the new created directory name to php ( just to make it shorter ). Then copy the file php.ini-dist in PHP directory to you windows directory ( C:\Windows or C:\Winnt depends on where you installed Windows ) and rename the file to php.ini. This is the PHP configuration file and we'll take a look what's in it later on.

Next, move the php4ts.dll file from the newly created php directory into the sapi subdirectory. Quoting from php installation file you can also place php4ts.dll in other places such as :

In the directory where apache.exe is start from ( C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2 \bin)
In your %SYSTEMROOT%\System32, %SYSTEMROOT%\system and %SYSTEMROOT% directory.
Note: %SYSTEMROOT%\System32 only applies to Windows NT/2000/XP)
In your whole %PATH%
Side Note : Thanks to Shannon Tang for pointing this out

Modifying Apache Configuration

Apache doesn't know that you just install PHP. We need to tell Apache about PHP and where to find it. Open the Apache configuration file in C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\conf\httpd.conf and add the following three lines :

LoadModule php4_module php/sapi/php4apache2.dll
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps

The first line tells Apache where to load the dll required to execute PHP and the second line means that every file that ends with .php should be processed as a PHP file. You can actually change it to anything you want like .html or even .asp! The third line is added so that you can view your php file source code in the browser window. You will see what this mean when you browse this tutorial and click the link to the example's source code like this one.

Now restart Apache for the changes to take effect ( Start > Programs > Apache HTTP Server 2.0.50 > Control Apache Server > Restart ) . To check if everything is okay create a new file, name it as test.php and put it in document root directory ( C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\htdocs ). The content of this file is shown below.

Installing MySQL

First extract the package ( mysql-4.0.18-win.zip ) to a temporary directory, then run setup.exe. Keep clicking the next button to complete the installation. By default MySQL will be installed in C:\mysql.

Open a DOS window and go to C:\mysql\bin and then run mysqld-nt --console
Now open another DOS window and type C:\mysql\bin\mysql