PHP & MySQL® Web Development All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies®

5.4. Testing Your Development Environment

After you install the XAMPP package and start Apache and MySQL, your environment should be ready to go. You can test your installation by performing the following in any order:

• Opening the XAMPP Web page

• Opening phpMyAdmin

• Running a test PHP script

5.4.1. Opening the XAMPP Web page

To test the XAMPP installation, follow these steps:

1. Open a browser.

2. Type localhost in the browser's address bar.

   In some cases, if your local machine isn't set up to recognize localhost, you might need to type 127.0.0.1 instead.

   An XAMPP Web page displays, providing a choice of languages. In some cases, XAMPP has already set your language choice and doesn't ask again. In this case, you don't need to do Step 3 because your browser is already at the page shown in Figure 5-7.

3. Click your preferred language.

   The XAMPP Welcome page displays, as shown in Figure 5-7.

   If the Web page doesn't display, Apache may not be running. Use your Control Panel to manage Apache, as described in the previous section.

   Notice the PHP Switch link in the bottom section of the left panel. You can use this link to change PHP versions between PHP 4 and PHP 5.

   Figure 5-7. The XAMPP Welcome page.

4. Click the Status link in the panel on the left side of the page.

   A list of software appears, showing ...