Manual:Simple Windows Apache Installation

This rough but complete installation guide is based on Windows XP SP2.

Download the required software:
The first thing you should do is to download the software the server will require. For ease of use, this page will assume you downloaded the binary releases, but if you want to customize your installation, you should download the source code of each program and compile it yourself.

An easier alternative to downloading and installing individually the required packages is to use WAMP. If you do so, you can skip to the Install MediaWiki step. There is one caveat: instead of unzipping MediaWiki into the Apache directory (the default option), unpack MediaWiki into the C:\WAMP\WWW folder (or the default www folder in your WAMP installation).

Install PHP
Run the PHP binary installer to C:\php. Ensure that the php.ini-dist file is in the C:\php directory. Copy C:\php\php.ini-dist to C:\php\php.ini. Use Windows Explorer to copy all files in the 'dlls' and 'sapi' subdirectories to C:\php.

Install Apache

 * 1) Run the apache installer (it has a .msi extension) and use the default options. This will set Apache2 up as a Windows Service.
 * 2) Locate C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\conf\httpd.conf</tt> and edit it using Wordpad (Notepad introduces a Byte-order mark character, so avoid using it if possible).
 * 3) Insert the following three lines after the line '### Section 1: Global Environment'
 * LoadModule php4_module "c:/php/php4apache2.dll" AddType application/x-httpd-php .php PHPIniDir "C:/php/" </tt>
 * 1) Now launch Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Services and restart the Apache2 service.
 * 2) Create a new file called phptest.php</tt> in C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\htdocs</tt>. In it, type the following line:
 * <?php phpinfo; ?></tt>
 * 1) Open your browser and navigate to http://localhost/phptest.php. You should see some php configuration settings.

Install MySQL
Unzip mysql-4.1.16-win32.zip and run the setup.exe program to install MySql using defaults. Enter a password for root and remember it.

Create a Wiki User with old-style password
(For more info on this issue see )

Launch Start Menu\MySQL\MySQL 4.1\Command Line Client. Enter the password you created earlier. Enter the following commands:

''Enter password: ******** Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g. Your MySQL connection id is 1 to server version: 4.1.16-nt

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.

mysql> CREATE DATABASE wikidb; Query OK, 1 row affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> GRANT ALL ON wikidb.* to wikiuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'password'; Query OK, 1 row affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR wikiuser@localhost = OLD_PASSWORD('password'); Query OK, 1 row affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> quit; ''

Install Media Wiki 1.5.5
Unzip mediawiki-1.5.5.tar.gz to C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\htdocs\mediawiki. (Ensure that index.php is directly underneath the mediawiki directory.

Now navigate your browser to: http://localhost/mediawiki/index.php

You should see the Media Wiki 1.5.5 Welcome Screen and the message You'll have to set the wiki up first!

Click on the link and enter a name for your wiki site, a password for the WikiSysop user and the password you entered in MySql for wikiuser. You should not need to enter the root password.

Hopefully you will see the Installation successful! message.

Finally follow the instructions and copy C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\htdocs\mediawiki\config\LocalSettings.php to C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\htdocs\mediawiki\LocalSettings.php.

Now click the link http://localhost/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page and you should see the magic words Wiki software successfully installed..