Manual:Installing MediaWiki on Windows XP

MediaWiki can be installed on IIS (Microsoft's web server) or Apache (free open source). It is easiest to install on Apache if using an Apache/MySQL/PHP bundle, but IIS otherwise.

IIS
Installing on IIS is specific for different versions of MediaWiki, so here are the links to specific versions.
 * Manual:Installing MediaWiki on Windows XP - MediaWiki 1.9.2
 * Manual:Installing MediaWiki on Windows XP - MediaWiki 1.7.1 - also for MediaWiki 1.8.2
 * Manual:Installing MediaWiki on Windows XP - MediaWiki 1.5

Apache
The easiest method is to download Xampp.


 * 1) Download and install Xampp from here.
 * 2) Use the Xampp control panel to make sure that both MySQL and Apache are running. Port 80 must be free.
 * 3) Download MediaWiki and unzip into the htdocs directory (eg, c:\xampp\htdocs\mediawiki)
 * 4) Connect to http://localhost/mediawiki/ and follow the instructions.

Note that this method produces an insecure installation and you should follow the instructions in the Xampp documentation to secure it. In particular, you should change the default passwords.