Installation of PHP on Windows Platform
To run PHP code and see the output on Browser, you need following things
- A Web Server [e.g. Apache]
- PHP
- Database [e.g. MySQL]
- Text Editor [e.g. Notepad++, KOMODO, Text Mate]
- Web Browser [e.g. IE, Firefox, Google Chrome]
You can use any combination of them. Most people uses Apache as Web Server, PHP and MySQL as Database regardless of their platform.
PHP need 32 or 64 bit platform to work properly. PHP will not work on 16 bit platforms such as Windows 3.1. Windows 98/Me/NT4 is no longer supported as of PHP 5.3.0. Windows 95 is no longer supported as of PHP 4.3.0.
There are two ways to install PHP on windows. One way of installing is to download each component (Apache, PHP and MySQL) separately and configure manually. Configuring PHP manually, which I think, is very cumbersome. You should follow a lot of steps very carefully. If you prefer to configure each component manually then here is the links to download
- Apache: httpd.apache.org
- PHP: https://www.php.net
- MySQL: https://dev.mysql.com
The other way of installing is to download a single pack which contains all these things (Apache, PHP and MySQL) . For windows, there are some single pack installer available on the internet.
- WAMP (Windows Apache MySQL PHP) : https://www.wampserver.com/en/index.php
- XAMMP : https://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html
Both are very handy and easy to use. But I will be using WAMP throughout my tutorial series. In next tutorial I will show you how to use WAMP on windows.