Most people who are developing web applications do not have access to an actual Linux server, and this tutorial will show you how to install a substitute so you can develop your applications on a virtual Linux server. This will enable you to use PHP, Apache and MySQL. on your Windows machine when developing.

The package I am using is EasyPHP 5.3.0 which can be downloaded on the EasyPHP website here. The version I recommend to download is the most stable one (currently 5.3.0 - you can experiment with others, but they will most likely not work 100% as required). Here is what the download area looks like:

After downloading the EasyPHP executable file, open it to launch the installer to install it on your computer. I am installing it on a Vista, and had it installed before on XP so there should be no problems with the installation. The installer looks like this (mine is on my desktop, yours will be where ever your downloads location is):

Basically go through the install of this program like you would any other (Next next accept next next...... etc. LOL). When you are done installing it you can launch it. You might want open up the help file in the end too, it has some great information for noobs who are just starting out with Linux environments. This is what the screen should look like if you installed EasyPHP successfully:

After the installation you might get an error message such as the one in the image below. Do not panic 95% of the time this is a very simple fix. Often this is caused by another application using port 80 (which is what Apache2 uses by default). Usually you can fix this by turning off programs that use P2P or are on port 80 such as Skype, Yahoo Messenger and such. (Most of them have a setting to not use port 80 - so you really dont need to turn them off but adjust a few settings). In my case it was Skype that was the culprit and, by adjusting a setting in connections I was able to get my virtual Apache server running.

If everything started correctly, your EasyPHP should appear in the system tray as a tiny 'E' icon. If you didn't manage to get your Apache server started (the MySQL server, 99% of the time will start) you can google more up on the issue, and most likely you will need to change the port numbers in your Apache configuration file - pretty simple.

 Next step is to go to the directory you installed your EasyPHP into. On a Windows computer, most often (if you didn't change the path) will get installed into something along the lines of - C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyPHP5.3.0. When you navigate here, you need to become familiar with the directory, you will be here often when developing web applications. The directory selected in the image below (/www) is where all of the websites you build will go. You can browse around other directories to become more familier what they are for (configuration files, software such as PHPMyAdmin are all located here).

Essentially, under the \www directory, every folder you make can be a seperate website, with all of the files to do with that particular site being under there. For example in the image below I created a pretty gangster sample_site directory (which I actually utilized in the Drupal tutorials).

To see all of your "websites", you can open up a browser and navigate to http://localhost or http://127.0.0.1/. Something such as this should appear below.

Also if you go to http://127.0.0.1/home it will take you to the administration panel. Here you can access all of the features EasyPHP offers!

Thats it for the installation of EasyPHP! After you install it I highly suggest going into the "Privileges" tab and creating another user for use when developing websites. EasyPHP will lock up if you add a password for root user, so you should all together make a seperate user.