Installing WordPress Locally

monitor1 So you'd like to try the full version of WordPress but don't want to commit to paying hosting fees until you've actually gotten your hands dirty. Why not install WordPress on your computer? There are several reasons you might want to do this aside from the aforementioned such as maintaining a fully functional backup of your live blog or creating a development and testing environment.

WordPress is not an executable. It is a software package written in PHP meaning it needs a few things to operate. The minimum requirements for WordPress are:

PHP version 4.2 or greater
MySQL version 4.0 or greater
Apache or LiteSpeed webserver (preferably Apache)

So then how do we meet these requirements? By installing WampServer. WampServer 2, which is the latest version as of the time of this writing, will install all of the above on your computer turning it in to a web server capable of running WordPress. There are alternate packages that will do the same thing such as XAMPP or MAMP but in this tutorial I'll focus on WampSever.

First off head over to the WampServer website and download the package to your hard drive. Once you click the executable to begin the installation you'll be greeted by a dialogue box warning not to upgrade from WAMP5. If you are currently running WAMP5 save your data and uninstall it first. If it does not exist on your machine then proceed. (click image to enlarge)

Do not upgrade from WAMP5

You'll then be greeted by the Setup Wizard. Off you go then. After you initiate the Setup Wizard you'll be greeted by another dialogue box asking where you would like to install the package. The default is root - c:\wamp - choose it. It will then ask if you wish to create a Desktop or Quick Launch icon. Select whichever you want. Click Install and let the installation begin. A caveat: if installing WampServer on WindowsXP Pro you will need to disable Window's IIS service. This is not an issue on XP Home. I've not encountered any problems using Vista Ultimate.

About a minute in to the install process it may ask you if you would like to set a default browser. Choose whichever you like. Near the end of the process (which only takes a moment or two) you'll be asked to specify the SMTP server and your email address. This is not important. Just go with the default values. (click image to enlarge)

Go with the default values

The final screen will appear informing you that the installation is complete and if you'd like to launch the application now. Of course you do!

WampServer will place an icon in the bottom taskbar which gives you access to the various menus. Left click the icon to bring up the main menu and select Localhost.

localhost1

You will now be greeted by the WampServer Homepage where you have full access to everything from phpmyadmin to your website. All of your web projects will be listed under the heading Your Projects. (click image to enlarge)

WampServer home page

Now it's time to set up the database. Click the phpmyadmin link to be taken to the phpmyadmin interface. You'll probably see a warning at the bottom of the page about the root account having no password. Ignore it. Afterall this is localhost. Choose a name for your database. For the sake of simplicity let's call it wordpress. Type wordpress in the input field beneath Create New Database. For the Collation value select utf8_unicode_ci from the drop menu. Click create. You now have a brand spanking new albeit empty database. We'll take care of that right away. (click image to enlarge)

Create your database

Download the WordPress software to your hard drive and extract the contents to c:\wamp\www so that you end up with c:\wamp\www\wordpress

In the wordpress folder look for the wp-config-sample.php file and edit the following lines...

define('DB_NAME', 'putyourdbnamehere');
define('DB_USER', 'usernamehere');
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'yourpasswordhere');

Insert the database name, in this case wordpress, in place of putyourdbnamehere.
Insert root in place of usernamehere.
Blank out yourpasswordhere as we don't have one. It should look like...

define('DB_NAME', 'wordpress');
define('DB_USER', 'root');
define('DB_PASSWORD', '');

Don't worry about changing the other lines. It's not important for a local install. You're the only one who has access to it. Save the file as wp-config.php

Now browse to http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php and follow the onscreen instructions. Be sure to make note of the password it generates for you during the install process. (click image to enlarge)

Install screen

Below is the screen informing you the installation is complete and providing you with your login info. (click image to enlarge)

Once you've noted your login details and hit the login button you will see the screen below. (click image to enlarge)

That's all there is to it. It should take no more than fifteen minutes to have everything up and running.

Please note that these instructions pertain to setting up a new blog in a local environment for testing purposes only. In a future post I'll go into detail about how to use WampServer to import and backup a live blog.

Added note: after several emails I must stress the importance of the above paragraph. This method IS NOT for implementing a live blog connected to the internet. Please do not do so as you open yourself to all sorts of nastiness. - 22 Dec 08

further reading:

WordPress
http://codex.wordpress.org
http://wordpress.org/support

WampServer
http://www.wampserver.com/en
http://www.wampserver.com/phorum/list.php?2

Comments

Rodolfo Urbano says:

19 May 2009 at 9:59 pm

Your tutorial is very useful, detailed and well clarified. Some sites I found are very difficult to follow and needs to mess around with some codes.

I am just starting my blog, and with your tutorial, I now could play around with my blog locally before updating it online.

Thank you.

Len Kutchma says:

19 May 2009 at 10:52 pm

Glad you found it useful. Good luck with the new blog.