Manual:Installing MediaWiki on XAMPP

XAMPP, a XAMP, can be used to get an environment for your Mediawiki installation up and running pretty quickly on your local machine.

Getting Apache and MySQL running

 * Download the latest version for your platform (Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, or Solaris) from apachefriends.
 * Run the executable to extract it (you can extract it straight to C:\ if you want; it'll create an XAMPP subfolder and put all the files there) and answer the questions setup will ask you.
 * At the end, setup will give you an option to start the XAMPP control panel; select that option and it should pop up.
 * Check the checkboxes for Apache and MySql and click on their respective Start buttons to start those.

Creating your database

 * Direct your browser to http://localhost/xampp/
 * Go to phpMyAdmin (on the left sidebar)
 * Create a new database (you'll need to enter a name for your new database, e.g., wikidb, and click Create)
 * When you create the database, it will take you into it. Click on Privileges (on the top sidebar)
 * Click Add a new user
 * Enter a name for the user (e.g., wikiuser) and a password. You can leave all the rest blank. You may want to write down your database name, user name, and password, because you'll need those to install Mediawiki.
 * Check All global privileges.
 * Click Go.

Setting up Mediawiki

 * Extract all your Mediawiki folders into the htdocs folder, wherever that it (e.g. c:\xampp\htdocs\), or a subfolder thereof (e.g. c:\xampp\htdocs\mediawiki\).
 * Direct your browser to the appropriate page, e.g. http://localhost/mediawiki/
 * Follow the Mediawiki installer's instructions, entering the database name, user name, and password you wrote down during the "creating your database" step above.
 * After Mediawiki tells you that everything went smoothly, remember to move your LocalSettings.php from the config folder (e.g. c:\xampp\htdocs\mediawiki\config\) into its parent folder. (The parent folder is the one with bin, configs, docs, etc. subfolders).
 * Direct your browser once again to the appropriate page, e.g. http://localhost/xampp/htdocs/mediawiki/ . It should take you to the Main Page of your new wiki. Congratulations! You're done.