Points you must check while installing XAMPP on Windows

Xampp is the best option to run websites on windows. Very easy to install, manage. Good community, excellent support, nothing more is needed in Open Source Environment.

It happens with me all the time, my machine goes down and I had to re-do the things like install the software, adjust all personal settings. I know, you would say why don’t I use any software that creates restorable backup for me? But frankly speaking I never gave such software a try 🙂

I have programming back ground so like to try out different program s and technologies so I always keep xampp, tomcat installed on my machine. Recently I installed latest Xampp (1.6) and tried to run my local web sites, to my surprise all of them were throwing access forbidden error. All these sites were running smoothly on previous xampp installation. Later I figured it out that the virtual host entries need to be updated to run the sites properly.

Here I would like to mention few points –

• Make apache and mysql installation as service if needed only

• If you use SKYPE, make sure you either not use xampp and skype together or ask skype not to use port 80. Its port for http. You can find this setting in skype connectivity settings.

• If you are adding virtual hosts entries, try to add them in separate conf file. httpd.conf default configuration file that comes with apache. You can create your own conf file say “my-v-hosts.conf”. Include only this file in main httpd-conf file instead of adding all your host entries. E.g add following line to httpd.conf
  Include conf/ my-v-hosts.conf

• Make sure you turn on the line from httpd.conf, NameVirtualHost *:80

• While uninstalling xampp, make sure you read each step instructions. In the un-installation process it asks whether to remove MySQL databases. Click proper option.

Hope this helps. Will add if found any thing new.