Installing WordPress on your own Windows computer
We generally become WordPress users to create a blog for everyone to see. This can involve the purchasing of a domain name and web hosting. These we treat as black boxes on which the WordPress software is installed, and everything magically works. This is exactly how it should be.
Although WordPress provides a comprehensive management interface, there are times when it would be better to have our own local copy, running on our own machine. There are several reasons we would want to do this:
- A working backup of our online site
- A development site to develop plugins and themes without affecting our online site
- A testing area to try out hacks and new versions of WordPress without fear of corrupting the live site
- A staging area to create and verify posts, before releasing them live
Just like in a commercial environment, it helps separate our blog into two parts: production and development, or live and test. Our production blog is the one that is visible to everyone. It might not contain the latest information or the most up-to-date software, but it is fully working and error free. Contrast this to a development blog where we have the very latest software and information, but possibly not fully working.
Separating our site gives us the freedom to experiment without fear of destroying the working version. At the very worse, if the development blog is corrupted we simply re-install the software, and the only loss is our own time. If we corrupt the production site then no one can access our information and we lose visitors.
In writing a set of articles dissecting a WordPress theme, I realised that a lot of people are directly editing their live site. There are many reasons for this, but a good one is probably due to the difficulty in setting up a local system. This is a short guide to try and explain how to do just that.
Installing the server software
WordPress requires several pieces of software:
- A webserver
- PHP configured to work through the webserver
- A MySQL database
None of these are particularly simple pieces of software, and all require configuration to work together. Fortunately there is a lovely software suite called WAMP that packages these together and adds a nice front-end. This is definitely the fastest and easiest way to get it working.
Consequently, the first task here is to download the latest WAMP. Note that this only works on Windows 2000/XP, so I'm afraid you are out of luck if you have anything earlier.
Installing WAMP
Once the software is downloaded we can begin to install it:
The installation process is very straightforward. First we choose a destination directory. The default is ideal.
Next we choose whether to automatically start WAMP. You can tick this if you want, but Apache and MySQL make heavy use of system resources and we don't always need them running. It is much better to start the software on demand, and so leave this option unchecked.
The software will now install.
After all the files are extracted we are asked for the DocumentRoot directory. This is the root directory for your website and will contain WordPress and any other files you want accessible through the webserver. Unless you have a specific reason, go with the default.
Next we are asked for the default browser. Your choice here is not really important, so pick whichever browser you prefer.
And that's it! We now have a fully working webserver on our computer. This same software is used in hundreds of thousands of websites across the world. We also have MySQL to provide our database, and PHP to run WordPress.
Help me to save time by reading these instructions!
If you are asking a question please read the FAQ to see if it has already been answered. All support questions should be directed to the support forum.
Comments (page 22 of 22)
Mar 9, 2008 6:03 am
Sorry Arthur, but I don't know how to get a local machine on the internet.
Mar 7, 2008 5:22 am
John
Thanks for your response. What I want to do is host it on my own web server as my hosting comapny doesnt really care if it works or not and there are plenty of issues with .php file persmissions so as you can understand I much rather to do it on my own webserver and host it my self.
I have now bought a domain name and have pointed www dns record to my static IP address, I'm an Arsenal supporter and would like to run my blog about the club etc...
http://www.arsenaltalk.co.uk should be pointing the dns www record to my static ip which then is forwarded for port 80 on my router where the blog is and I believe this should br working no problem.
Is there any other changed I need to make on my local machine for this to work properly?
Your help is appreciated.
Arthur
Mar 7, 2008 5:16 am
Arthur, this guide doesn't deal with making a local installation of WordPress available to the internet. Unless you have specific reasons, or know exactly what is involved, you will find it a lot easier using shared hosting for your site. The address http://staticIP//arsenalogy.co.uk/wp doesn't make any sense, and I suspect that this is why your CSS files are not loading. Remember that your local host file has no affect on what people on the internet can see.
Mar 6, 2008 7:10 am
I have managed to install it now finally i think there was an issue with wordpress files somewhere, not sure why.
Now I have a static IP and I want to use it for now to be able to view my blog online I think this is the ultimate point for setting this up in the first place. I have setup port forwarding on my router for port 80 going to my machine where wordpress is installed. I have changed the Blog url to http://staticIP//arsenalogy.co.uk/wp where all my wordpress files are, now it sometimes doesn not load at all as if it was timing out won't load properly it looses the layout and theme completely, I only get the proper theme layout on the local machine. I have not started bloggin yet as I do want to set it up properly to start with. Is there anything I can do to the local hostfile? I have noticed it crated a lot of websites with the localhost IP address, there was a huge list there I deleted it and recreated it again. Your help is appreciated!
Cheers
A
Mar 6, 2008 4:57 am
Hi there
I'm new to this and found this how to very helpfull however my install to what it seems went ok but now I'm stuck. The http://local.arsenalogy.co.uk/phpinfo.php still works fine and http://localhost/phpinfo.php work fine as well.
Problems I have come accross:
1 .htaccess when creating the file it does not take me back to http://local.arsenalogy.co.uk/phpinfo.php
2 When I try and install the wordpress software I get the follwing error:
500 Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@localhost and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
I'm not sure what is wrong here please can someone help?
Arthur
Mar 4, 2008 2:37 pm
Steve, there are different ways to have multiple blogs on one machine. One is with a new database, another is by changing the database prefix (it's one of the questions you are asked when installing WordPress). Whichever method you chose you tell WordPress which data you want when configuring it - the wp-config.php file contains details of which database, username, password, and database prefix it should use.
Monika, did you configure the blog URL correctly in the Options/General administration page?
Feb 19, 2008 2:13 pm
After reviewing the instructions again very carefully (and then, FOLLOWING the instructions...all of them
WAMP and WordPress worked as advertised. One mistake I made was in trying to navigate to word press within Firefox by typing in C:, navigating to the location, and double clicking, which resulted in file:\\\ being dropped in as the URL instead of http://localhost/. Once I figured that out, everything worked.
However, I'm still a bit confused on the relationship of the database and phpMyAdmin especially within the context of running more than one blog...how do you run more than one wordpress blog on the same machine? Do I set up a new database for each blog and, if so, how do I tell WAMP to switch back and forth...or, is that automatic when I launch the particlar http://localhost/?
Thanks for all the support you have provided.
Feb 16, 2008 8:52 am
Hi, I installed WAMP onto my local server and everything runs well until I try to look at my actual blog. I manage to login fine through http://localhost/wp-login.php and see my WordPress admin site. But when I click on "view site" next to my title or even "view Post" it always links me to the http://localhost/ with the WAMPs homepage info. It talks about the extension, tools and my projects and I have no idea why it does this? Could anybody pleasehelp?
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