For making changes on my blog and to test the new changes, I have installed WordPress on my computer. Actually We should never make changes in our WordPress blog directly on our hosting server, it is always better to test them locally and then move to the server. WordPress installation on localhost or local computer is very simple. For installing wordpress in my computer, I use EasyPHP. EasyPHP is a complete software package allowing to use all the power and the flexibility of the dynamic language PHP and the effecient use of databases. Package includes an Apache server, a MySQL database, a fully PHP execution, as well as easy development tools for your web site or your applications. It completely covers all the requirements of WordPress. In this article I have tried to provide some guidelines that will help you install and run Wordpress locally on your pc using Windows XP operating system.

step1: Download EasyPHP Just double-click on the downloaded executable, select an installation directory and follow the instructions. Finally you will have EasyPHP installed in your computer.

step2: After installation, a short cut to EasyPHP is created in the directory “Start/Programs/EasyPHP”. To launch EasyPHP you have to click the icon in start program. When EasyPHP is launched, an icon appears in the system tray.

step3: On right clicking the EasyPHP icon, you will get a menu which contains these options.

• Help: help on EasyPHP
• Log Files: record errors generated by Apache, MySQL and EasyPHP
• Configuration: gives access to various configuration tools
• Explorer: open the directory “www” in Windows Explorer
• Administration : opens the administration page
• Web local : opens local web
• Restart : restarts Apache and MySQL
• Start/Stop : Starts/Stops Apache and MySQL
• Quit : closes EasyPHP

Below is the menu, you will get when you right click the EasyPHP icon.

step4: Now place all your WordPress files either in the directory “www” or an folder inside “www” say “myblog” that you have created, so that PHP can interpret your PHP pages.

Now open wp-config-sample.php and find the following code

define(’DB_NAME’, ‘wordpress’);
define(’DB_USER’, ‘username’);
define(’DB_PASSWORD’, ‘password’);
define(’DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’);

Here you have to define the MySQL settings for WordPress. Enter the Database name,username and password. You do not need to change the host name. This is a sample example.

define(’DB_NAME’, ‘myblog’);
define(’DB_USER’, ‘abhisays’);
define(’DB_PASSWORD’, ‘password’);
define(’DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’);

Save the file and rename it to wp-config.php

step5: If you have copied all the wordpress files in “myblog” folder of www directory. Now you will have to setup the database for the blog. Click Administration option in the menu. In the administration page you will get phpmyAdmin link. Click this link to launch phpmyAdmin. Create new database, enter the database name you entered in the wp-config.php file and click Create. Now add user to this database. Go to homepage of phpmyadmin and click on priviledges link. Then click “Add a new user” link.

How to add new user.

Here enter the same login information that you had earlier entered in wp-config.php. Then Click Check All and then Go Button

step6: Now enter http://127.0.0.1/myblog/wp-admin/install.php in your browser. If everything is done properly you will get installtion page of WordPress.

Now the next steps are very simple, just you have to provide the valid information and click Install.

You can login to your local blog by going to http://127.0.0.1/myblog/wp-login.php. You can install new plugins, change template, edit the php code of wordpress and do the relevant testing.