Installing XAMPP

Download XAMPP Installer for WIndows and install with default settings.

If you get a warning in XAMPP saying Skype is using port 80, do the following:

• Stop all services and quit XAMPP
• Open Skype
• Tools -> Options -> Advanced settings -> Connection
• Uncheck “Use port 80 and 443 as alternatives”
• Run XAMPP as administrator

Setting up virtual hosts

• Stop all services in XAMPP
• Open Apache vhosts file located at: C:\xampp\apache\conf\extra\httpd-vhosts.­conf
• First add a default virtual host buy adding the following code to the end of the file

<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot "C:/xampp/htdocs"
    ServerName localhost
</VirtualHost>

This will stop the URL http://localhost/ from redirecting to the first real virtual host we create. This is handy when you need to access a URL like http://localhost/newsite/wp/wp-admin to install WordPress etc.

• Next follow the examples in the vhosts file and add this code to the end of the file after our default virtual host.

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin postmaster@bp.benpearson
    DocumentRoot "C:/xampp/htdocs/benpearson"
    ServerName bp.benpearson
    ServerAlias www.bp.benpearson
    ErrorLog "logs/bp.benpearson-error.log"
    CustomLog "logs/bp.benpearson-access.log" combined
</VirtualHost>

This code will create a virtual host for bp.benpearson

• Create the folder C:/xampp/htdocs/benpearson and put a test index.html in there.
• Run notepad as an administrator
• Open the Windows hosts file located at: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts (may need to select “All Files” to see the hosts file in the etc directory)
• Add the following line to the bottom of the file (the space after the IP address should be a tab) :

127.0.0.1	bp.benpearson

• Start XAMPP Apache service.
• Go to bp.benpearson in a browser and you should see your test index.html.

Reference: How to set up XAMPP with virtual hosts (some instructions conflict with the above)