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How To Install WordPress On Localhost Using WAMP?
I have spoken many times about the benefits of having a test
WordPress website in order to test plugins and try out changes to your
WordPress theme.
My test WordPress website is installed in a subdirectory of
a domain I own. This is the most practical solution for me as I use a 27″ iMac,
and a 12.5″ Windows laptop, to work online. I switch between both of them frequently;
therefore it is better for my test website to be hosted online.
An alternative to hosting your test environment online is to
install WordPress locally on your computer. Doing this also allows you to
modify your installation and learn more about WordPress; even if you are
offline.
In this article, I would like to walk you through how you
can install WordPress locally on a computer that runs on Microsoft Windows
using an application called WAMP.
How To Install WAMP On Your Windows Computer?
Wamp Server is a development environment that allows you to
manage use PHP and MySQL databases on your Windows computer. The script is
frequently referred by its abbreviated name WAMP, or Wamp.
WAMP can be downloaded from the Official WAMP Website. 32
bit and 64 bit versions are available. Be sure to download The Correct Version
For Your System.
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WAMP is available in 32 bit and 64 bit versions.
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Once you have clicked on the WAMP exe file, the installation
process will begin. The process is straight forward.
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Installing WAMP only takes a minute.
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Just like WordPress, WAMP is released under the GNU General
Public License.
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You need to agree to the terms of the GNU General Public
License.
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By default, WAMP will install to C:\wamp\. However, you can
modify the directory name and location. Approximately, 450MB of storage is
required to install WAMP.
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Choose the installation directory of WAMP.
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Shortcuts to WAMP can be added to your desktop and to your
quick launch menu.
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Add shortcuts to WAMP.
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WAMP gives you a chance to backtrack and change settings
before you click the “Install” button.
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Click the install button to start extracting files to your
computer.
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The installation script will then start extracting files to
the installation directory you specified previously.
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WAMP does not take long to extract all files to your
computer.
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In the next screen, WAMP asks you to choose your default
browser. You need to navigate to the directory for the browser you use and then
select the appropriate exe file.
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Select your default browser to ensure that WAMP opens up
pages in the browser your normally use.
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The mail parameters for PHP are defined in the next screen.
I suggest leaving the default settings intact unless you need to send out mail
through your local installation.
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I recommend using the default PHP mail parameters.
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That is all there is to it. WAMP will now be installed on
your computer.
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Congratulations – you just installed WAMP!
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Starting WAMP
If you click on the “Launch WampServer” option at the end of the installation process, WAMP will be running. If not, you can open WAMP by clicking on the shortcut to WAMP via your Windows start menu. |
You can open WAMP via your start menu.
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When WAMP is running, it will be displayed as an icon in
your taskbar. A red W icon means that the WAMP server is not running. An orange
W icon means that the server is running, but Apache is not configured
correctly. A green W icon signifies that the server is online and you can
access your server by entering 127.0.0.1, or localhost, into your browser.
Right clicking on the W icon will bring up an option to
change to one of 24 languages that are available.
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Right clicking the WAMP icon allows you to change the
default language.
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Left clicking on the W icon brings up the main menu of WAMP.
From here, you can start, stop, and restart all services. You can also manage
Apache, PHP, and MySQL. There are links to localhost, phpMyAdmin, and your www
directory, too.
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Left clicking the WAMP icon brings up the main menu of WAMP.
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You will notice that the WAMP icon on my computer is orange
in the above screenshots. It took me a while to figure out why the server was
not working correctly on my computer. I found out that it was because the
default port that WAMP uses was being used by something else.
You can verify whether this is occurring on your computer by
left clicking on the WAMP icon. Then navigate to Apache, Service, and select
“Test Port 80”.
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Select “
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This brings up a command prompt that states whether port 80
is being used by something else. In my case, it was being used by
microsoft-IIS/7.5. This refers to Internet
Information Services (IIS) For Windows Server.
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The command prompt states what is using port 80.
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Apparently, you can resolve this issue by disabling or
removing the application that is using port 80. A quicker solution, and from
what seems to be a more practical solution, is to simply change the port that
WAMP uses. To do this, you need to edit the httpd.conf file.
On my computer, I found this located in this directory >
C:\wamp\bin\apache\apache2.4.9\conf.
Open the httpd.conf file in a text editor and do a search
for Listen 0.0.0.0:80. The two digits at the end refers to the port. The code
will look like something like this.
#Listen 12.34.56.78:80 Listen 0.0.0.0:80 Listen [::0]:80
All you have to do is change the port number in the last two
lines from 80. In my installation, I used 88; though you can use pretty much
any number you wish.
The listen section in the WAMP httpd.conf file on my
computer now looks like this.
#Listen 12.34.56.78:80 Listen 0.0.0.0:88 Listen [::0]:88
Once you have made the changes to httpd.conf, save the file
and then select the “Restart All Services” option at the bottom of the WAMP
menu. After restarting WAMP services, the WAMP icon should change from orange
to green.
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Your WAMP server should now be working correctly.
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The only problem I faced installing WAMP was with port 80
being used. If you are struggling to resolve the same issue, or if you
experience a different problem during installation, I recommend the WampServer
Forums. There are over 16,000 discussion threads in the forum, therefore
you should find an answer to any issues you face.
The other problem that I saw mentioned frequently was that
of Skype using port 80. Apparently, this issue can be resolved by opening
Skype, selecting Tools and then options. Then go to the advanced section and
click on Connection. You will find an option there to disable Skype from using
port 80.
Note:- I did not have to disable Skype from using port 80 as
I changed the port that was being used.
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You can stop Skype from using port 80 via the Skype options
area.
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With WAMP now functioning correctly, you can now access the
WAMP information page at http://localhost:XX/. XX refers to the port you
defined in the httpd.conf file. Therefore, I can view the information page for
my website by entering http://localhost:88/ into my browser.
If you are able to use WAMP with port 80, you should be able
to view the WAMP information page directly using http://localhost.
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The WAMP information page details information about your
server configuration, tools, projects, and aliases.
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You can also visit your information page by using the IP
address 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost. For example, http://127.0.0.1 or
http://127.0.0.1:88/.
How To Create A Database For Your Local WordPress
Installation
In your WAMP information page, you will see a link to
phpMyAdmin. Clicking on the link will open up phpMyAdmin and allow you to
manage your databases. Alternatively, you can visit phpMyAdmin directly by
entering http://localhost:XX/phpmyadmin/ into your browser.
Again, XX refers to the port your WAMP installation uses.
For me, the direct link to phpMyAdmin was http://localhost:88/phpmyadmin/. If
you are using port 80, the URL for phpMyAdmin should be
http://localhost/phpmyadmin/.
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phpMyAdmin allows you to create and manage all of your MySQL
databases.
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At the top of phpMyAdmin, you will see a tab named
“Databases”. If you click on that tab, you will see an option to create a new
database. You can call your new database whatever you like.
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Creating a new database takes seconds.
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You will receive confirmation that your database has been
created. You will also see it listed in the database tree in the column at the
left hand side of the page.
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Confirmation of your new database being created.
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You may have noticed that we have not created a database
user and password. We don’t actually have to complete this step as we can use root for
our database username and leave the password field blank.
It is also worth noting that your database name is not case
sensitive. Therefore, in the example above, when I install WordPress, I could
enter WordPress-Test, or wordpress-test, as the database name.
Extracting Your WordPress Files
Once you have created your database, you should download
WordPress to your computer. Extract the WordPress folder to the www
directory within your WAMP installation directory i.e. C:\wamp\www\.
You can rename the WordPress folder anything you like. For
example, you could rename the folder test, blog, or my-website. It is really up
to you. When I tested WAMP, I simply kept the folder name as WordPress. If you
are installing many WordPress installations locally on your computer, I
recommend naming each folder something self-explanatory so that you can easily
reference them later.
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Place your WordPress folder in the www directory.
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Installing WordPress Using WAMP
With WordPress copied to our www directory and a database
created for our website using phpMyAdmin, we can now install WordPress. As the
WordPress installation folder is named WordPress, the WordPress website will be
located at http://localhost:XX/wordpress/. For my installation, the URL is
http://localhost:88/wordpress/. If you were to use port 80, you could access it
directly at http://localhost/wordpress/.
When you load up your website at the address noted above,
you will see a message stating that there is not a wp-config.php file.
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WordPress advises you to create a configuration file.
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From here on in, the steps are exactly the same as any other
WordPress installation. You may recall from my Complete Guide ToInstalling WordPress article that there are two ways of creating the
wp-config.php configuration file. You can either rename wp-config-sample.php to
wp-config.php and enter your database information (this is detailed in step 3a
of my guide). Alternatively, you can create the wp-config.php through the
WordPress installer (this is detailed in step 3b of my guide).
It does not matter which method you use, as they will both
create a wp-config.php configuration file that will connect your WordPress core
files to your WordPress database.
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WordPress reminds you to have your database information
ready for creating the wp-config.php file.
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Creating the wp-config.php file through the installer is
easy. The installer also verifies that your connection details are entered
correctly.
There are five fields to complete. The database name is the
name of the database you created through phpMyAdmin earlier. If you recall, I
named my database WordPress-Test (I can also enter this in lowercase). You
should enter root as your database username and leave the password field blank.
Leave the database host field as localhost. The last field
is the prefix you want to add to your WordPress database tables. The default
value is wp_. From a security point of view, it is normally better to change
this value to make it more difficult for hackers to access your website.
However, as your website will only be accessible locally on your computer, I do
not believe there is a high risk of this occurring; therefore, I do not think
there is any harm with keeping wp_ as the database table prefix.
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Enter your WordPress database connection details.
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If your connection details were correct, you will then see a
page advising you to run the WordPress installer. At this point, your WordPress
installation directory will have a wp-config.php configuration file with the
correct connection details.
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You will see this page if your connection details were
correct.
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Once the wp-config.php configuration file has been created,
you can install WordPress. You have to enter website details such as the site
title, your administrator username and password, and your email address.
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The installation process for WordPress is short and sweet.
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The next page confirms that WordPress has been installed and
displays a button to log in to your newly created website.
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WordPress has now been installed.
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Next, log in to your new website using the username and
password you just defined.
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Login to WordPress using your username and password.
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Your local WordPress website looks and works just like it
would if it was hosted online.
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The WordPress dashboard is displayed when you log in.
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If you ever move your local WordPress website to a new
directory, or if you rename the WordPress installation folder, you will need to
change the website address via the general settings page.
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You can change the location of your website via the “General
Settings” page.
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Another thing you may want to change is your website
permalink settings. As you know, this can be done via the permalink page in the
settings area.
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You can change your permalink structure in the settings area.
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You should see a message stating that your new permalink
structure has been saved. Unfortunately, your permalinks will not work
correctly after activating them.
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Your permalink settings may not work correctly right away.
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In order for a user friendly permalink structure to work
correctly, you need to enable the Apache rewrite module. You can do this by
clicking on the WAMP icon and bringing up the main WAMP menu. Then select
Apache, Apache modules, and then enable rewrite_module.
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You need to enable the WAMP rewrite module in order for
permalinks to work correctly.
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Once you have enabled the WAMP rewrite module, your
permalinks will work correctly.
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Your permalinks will now work correctly.
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That is all there is to it. You now have a fully functional
WordPress website on your Windows computer.
Alternatives To WAMP
WAMP is known as an AMP solution stack. W stands for Windows
and AMP stands for Apache MySQL PHP. This is how WAMP gets its name.
WAMP is one of the better known AMP solutions, however there
are alternative AMP packages out there for Windows such as Xampp, Ampps, and Bitnami.
If for any reason you cannot configure WAMP, you may want to
give one of these alternatives a try. The process of installing a WordPress
website locally on your computer is much the same. You simply need to activate
a server on your Windows computer, create a MySQL database, and then install
WordPress.
Final Thoughts
A local installation of WordPress on your computer is very
useful for development and testing. I have always used a test WordPress website
of mine that I host on a subdirectory of a domain I own. This is the best
solution for me on most occasions as it allows me to access my test website on
any computer and in any location.
However, I can see the benefits from having a WordPress
website installed locally. It would be very useful when I do not have access to
the internet. For example, when my internet connection goes down or when I have
a long flight and I want to be productive and do some work.
During testing, I also noticed that my local WordPress
website loaded quicker than my hosted WordPress websites. You would, of course,
expect this; as the local installation of WordPress does not need to connect to
the internet and download files from a server thousands of miles away. Security
is less of a concern on a local WordPress installation too.
Transferring a local WordPress installation to a live
website is also painless. All you have to do is upload your files and your
database and ensure that the URL settings are correct (that, however, is not
something I will cover in this article).
I encourage you to give WAMP a try for
yourself and install WordPress on your Windows computer. It should take you ten
to fifteen minutes to download the application and set everything up.
If you found this article on installing WordPress locally
useful, then I encourage you to subscribe to our blog. This will
ensure you are kept up to date with our latest articles. If you have any suggestions regarding this article please comment here in comment section below.
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