Apache: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition

1.9. Apache Under Windows

In our view, Win32 currently comprises Windows 95, Windows 98, and NT.^[‡‡‡] As far as we know, these different versions are the same as far as Apache is concerned, except that under NT, Apache can also be run as a service. Performance under Win32 may not be as good as under Unix, but this will probably improve over coming months.

^[‡‡‡] But note that neither we nor the Apache Group have done much with Windows 98 at the time of writing.

Since Win32 is considerably more consistent than the sprawling family of Unices, and since it loads extra modules as DLLs at runtime, rather than compiling them at make time, it is practical for the Apache Group to offer a precompiled binary executable as the standard distribution. Go to http://www.apache.org/dist and click on the version you want, which will be in the form of a self-installing .exe file (the .exe extension is how you tell which one is the Win32 Apache). Download it into, say, c:\temp and then run it from the Win32 Start menu's Run option.

The executable will create an Apache directory, C:\Program Files\Apache, by default. Everything to do with Win32 Apache happens in an MS-DOS window, so get into a window and type:

> cd c:\<apache directory>> dir
         

and you should see something like this:

Volume in drive C has no label Volume Serial Number is 294C-14EE Directory of C:\apache . <DIR> 21/05/98 7:27 . .. <DIR> 21/05/98 7:27 .. DEISL1 ISU 12,818 29/07/98 15:12 DeIsL1.isu HTDOCS <DIR> 29/07/98 15:12 htdocs MODULES ...