Web Database Applications with PHP and MySQL, 2nd Edition

Installing with EasyPHP

The best integrated Apache, PHP, and MySQL package for Microsoft Windows is EasyPHP. It's frequently updated, carefully maintained, and reasonably easy to install. However, unless you're a French speaker, it does have the minor disadvantage that some of the documentation and instructions are in French.

Here are the steps to installing EasyPHP under Microsoft Windows. In all steps, make sure you use upper or lowercase characters as shown:

1. Using a web browser, visit the http://www.easyphp.org/ web site. Click on the language icon at the top of the page that best suits you (the U.S. flag means English).

2. Under the Main Menu heading on the left of the page, click on Downloads and then click on the current version to start the download; at the time of writing, this was EasyPHP1.7 which contains Apache 1.3.27, PHP 4.3.3, and MySQL 4.0.15, and we assume this version in these steps.

   Save the downloaded file in a temporary directory such as C:\temp.

   When using EasyPHP 1.7, you'll find that some of the features of MySQL 4.1 discussed in Chapter 15 and the features of PHP5 discussed in Chapter 14 can't be used. However, the rest of the material (including the online winestore) works without modification.

3. Run the downloaded file using the Run option in the Start menu. If you downloaded EasyPHP 1.7, the file that's downloaded is easyphp1-7_setup.exe. and you can run it by typing:

   c:\temp\easyphp1-7_setup.exe

   Click OK. This will begin the EasyPHP installation process.

4. Now, click ...