Tuesday, August 09, 2005

How frustrating!

I spent the entire day and evening trying to install Apache 2, PHP 4.4.0, and MySQL 3.23 on my workstation. I'm mentally fatigued. I succeeded in installing Apache 2 and PHP 4 but my installation of MySQL 3.23 is not cooperating. I've thrown in the towel but this has been a gratis day when I need to be maximizing my returns.

I basically followed this document and summarized it with:


STEP 1: Go to Start->Control Panels->Add/Remove Programs and Remove PHP 5 (do NOT remove Apache2).

STEP 2: Download PHP 4.4.0 from http://us3.php.net/get/php-4.4.0-Win32.zip/from/a/mirror ( you can get to that link from http://us3.php.net/downloads.php and choosing PHP Installer under Windows 4.4.0 binaries ) Use the ZIP package NOT the installer.exe.

STEP 3: Install PHP

STEP 3.1: Extract the files to C:\ This will create a folder called C:\php-4.4.0-Win32.

STEP 3.2: Rename the folder C:\php-4.4.0-Win32 to C:\PHP

STEP 3.3: Copy the file C:\PHP\php.ini-recommended file to your windows folder: c:\windows (might possibly be c:\winnt)

STEP 3.4: Rename C:\windows\php.ini-recommended to C:\windows\php.ini

STEP 3.5: Copy the file C:\PHP\php4ts.dll to your windows system folder. For XP and ME this is c:\windows\system32\

Now you have PHP 4.4.0 installed and Apache 2 installed. Next we will change some configurations.

STEP 4: Edit httpd.conf (find this file by going to Start->Program Files->Apache HTTP Server 2.0.54->Configure Apache Server->Edit the Apache httpd.conf Configuration File OR go to C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\conf\ and locate the file httpd.conf) to change the line that reads

DirectoryIndex index.html index.html.var

To be

DirectoryIndex index.php index.html index.htm index.html.var

STEP 5: Open httpd.conf for editing. Find the section with references to “LoadModule” and after the last LoadModule line add

LoadModule php4_module “c:/PHP/sapi/php4apache2.dll”

STEP 6 Open httpd.conf for editing. Anywhere after the LoadModule line from STEP 6 add:

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php

Next you will edit the php.ini file which contains setting that control the behavior of php.

STEP 7: Open php.ini for editing. This file should be in c:\windows\ and find the line that says

doc_root =

Change it to read

doc_root = C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\htdocs

Now we will test.

STEP 8: Open Internet Explorer or Firefox (or browser of choice) and go to http://localhost/html/phpinfo.php If you see a screen that shows the php version and lots of variables then you have successfully installed the apache web server and PHP.

Next you will install the MySQL database server.

STEP 9: Get MySQL 3.23 (Note: The production server uses MySQL 3.23.39 which is why we aren’t using 4.1) from http://downloads.mysql.com/archives/mysql-3.23/mysql-3.23.58-win.zip saving it to a temporary location.

STEP 10: Unzip mysql-3.23.58-win.zip

STEP 11: Run setup.exe choosing the Typical installation.

STEP 12: Run C:\mysql\bin\winmysqladmin.exe to set a username and password for accessing mysql (don’t forget these).