How to set up Wordpress on a Wampserver

October 6, 2008 – 1:10 pm | by Rebecca Markowitz

Recently, someone asked me how to set up a local Wamp server on their computer so they can test Wordpress sites locally before uploading and editing online. MakeUseOf nicely explained what a Wamp server is and how to set it up. I wanted to expand their explanation to include setting up Wordpress.

What is this Wamp business?

According to MakeUseOf, WAMP stands for Windows Apache, MySQL and PHP.

A great majority of websites are run by a trio of services – Apache, MySQL and PHP. Apache is the web server, which handles browser requests and sends the information across the internet to your browser. PHP is the programming language that many sites are written in – this creates dynamic content which in turn is sent to Apache, which sends the data to your browser. And finally, MySQL is the database which stores the information for programs. PHP is used to access this database.

How to Set up a Wamp Server

Step 1

Download the WampServer.

Step 2

Run the installer, using the default options provided.

Step 3

Double click the Wamp icon on your desktop .

On your taskbar, near the time in the bottom right corner of your desktop, left click on the semicircle button and Click “Put online”.

How to set up Wordpress on your Wamp

Step 1

Download Wordpress. Extract the files.

Left click on the semicircle on your taskbar.

Open up the www directory.

Drag the Wordpress folder into the www directory.

Step 2

1.  Open PHPmyadmin from your wamp menu

2. Create a new Database (‘wordpress‘ or ‘blog‘ are good). Leave Collation. Click Create.

3.  Click the Home icon in the upper left to return to the main page, then click Privileges. If a user relating to WordPress does not already exist in the list of users, create one:

  1. Click Add a new User.
  2. Chose a username for WordPress (‘admin’ is good) and enter it in the User name field. (Be sure Use text field: is selected from the dropdown.)
  3. For Host, select Local and type in localhost
  4. Choose a difficult-to-guess password and enter it in the Password field. (Be sure Use text field: is selected from the dropdown.) Re-enter the password in the Re-type field.
  5. Write down the username and password you chose.
  6. Leave all options under Global privileges at their defaults.
  7. Click Go.

4. Return to the Privileges screen and click the Check privileges icon on the user you’ve just created for WordPress. In the Database-specific privileges section, select the database you’ve just created for WordPress under the Add privileges to the following database dropdown. The page will refresh with privileges for that database. Click Check All to select all privileges, and click Go.

5. On the resulting page, make note of the host name listed after Server: at the top of the page. (This will usually be localhost.)

6. Returning to where you extracted the WordPress package, rename the file wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php.

7. Open the renamed wp-config.php file in your favorite text editor. Here’s a screenshot of how the wp-config.php is set up.

8. Fill in the following information

DB_NAME
The name of the database you created for WordPress. (ex. Wordpress)
DB_USER
The username you created for WordPress (ex. admin)
DB_PASSWORD
The password you chose for the WordPress username.
DB_HOST
The hostname you determined  (usually localhost)

9. Save the file.

10.  Run the install scrip by copying and pasting this URL into your browser http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php

Step 3

Hooray! Hopefully all went according to plan.

Treat yourself to a nice cold beer.

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  1. 42 Responses to “How to set up Wordpress on a Wampserver”

  2. By tzvika a on Oct 6, 2008 | Reply

    Great stuff finally i have my wordpress installed locally way to go Rebecca thanks so much!

  3. By Nathan Rice on Oct 6, 2008 | Reply

    I run a local install of WordPress using MAMP (same concept, just using the Mac), and it’s very easy to set up.  Also, not having to be dependent on an internet connection in order to develop is a lifesaver when the net connection is unstable.

  4. By Alex on Oct 7, 2008 | Reply

    I followed your guide and have wordpress running on wampserver, one problem is that it doesn’t send any emails.

    It would be great if you could update/write a separate guide with instruction on how to get email working.

  5. By Ryan on Oct 7, 2008 | Reply

    I’ve had an awful time trying to get XAMP lite running under XP Pro. In the end I gave up and have switched back to XP Home and haven’t had any troubles.

    I wonder if the WAMP suffers the same problems?

  6. By Ray on Nov 25, 2008 | Reply

    I just ran the WAMP install on XP Pro and all went according to directions.  Thanks for the concise, clear instructions.

  7. By stevefox on Dec 29, 2008 | Reply

    thanks for the clear instructions.. now i can install the blog on WAMP server.

    Regards
    Steve

  8. By q3_abhi on Jan 18, 2009 | Reply

    Thanks a million , finally a way to make Wordpress work offline. Thanks a lot man , this really helped me out !!!

  9. By The Happy Rock on Jan 22, 2009 | Reply

    Thanks for the great article. 

    It took me about ten minutes to set everything up and most of that was figuring out that I need to stop Skype to get the WAMP server to start correctly.

    Thanks a ton for the huge timesaver.

  10. By Arye Gur on Jan 23, 2009 | Reply

    This is a very helpfull thread.
    Thanks.

  11. By Dennis St Germain on Mar 18, 2009 | Reply

    This is the first time someone actually made it work your the boss. Peace and Thanks

  12. By Glen on Apr 11, 2009 | Reply

    Thanks for this information.  It worked like a charm.  I can now develop my custom Wordpress themes.  Your step-by-step procedures worked great.

  13. By peter on Apr 30, 2009 | Reply

    Thanx
    i tried it first by opnening the install.php with my browser (as stated in the wordpress-install readme file), but that didn’t work because the url is not correct. I got an error and couldn’t figure it out, but having copied the right url from your site, it worked!

  14. By arnold on May 2, 2009 | Reply

    thanks you save my life…

  15. By Tom Johnson on May 26, 2009 | Reply

    Very clear instructions. Thanks for writing these up. One question — will WAMP Server work on a Mac? Thanks,

    Tom

  16. By YellowShark on May 26, 2009 | Reply

    i’ve got WAMP on XP Pro as a development environment, and i’m pretty happy with it. wordpress works great of course. i don’t actually know how i lived without it. the idea of debugging PHP on a remote server… bad times.

    another excellent addition to this setup was adding IIS, strictly for the SMTP server. it’s necessary to change the port for the IIS webserver (8080 is a nice alt.) in order to avoid conflicts with WAMP, as they both reach for port 80. unfortunately i’m having problems getting _only_ wordpress’ emails to go through. other mail sent by the WAMP server goes through fine, as well as my email clients (outlook + thunderbird) i’m sure it only requires another 30 hours on googs and i’ll have it dialed, but either way the potential is there and i’d strongly recommend the pain of installing and configuring it.

    re: Skype conflict – there’s a setting in skype to allow it to use port 80 for incoming connections. de-select that and you should have no conflicts w/ WAMP + Skype.

  17. By Michael on Jun 5, 2009 | Reply

    Great post!!! I have defiantly bookmarked your site!

  18. By Jon on Jun 18, 2009 | Reply

    Your the man!
    I have never had any experience with servers/wordpress or anything close maybe except setting a static ip.
    your  instructions helped me alott! i have wordpress on wamp in my vista in no time and having a beer !
    grateful, million thanks!

  19. By ranjith on Jun 18, 2009 | Reply

    thanx dear…a great help

  20. By Miriam Schwab on Jun 18, 2009 | Reply

    Rebecca would be the man, if she wasn’t a woman :)

    Thanks for the compliments!

  21. By Lisa on Jul 9, 2009 | Reply

    I cannot thank you enough, like Peter I tried to get WP up and running by opnening the install.php with my browser (as stated in the wordpress-install readme file and the Codex at WP.org), but that didn’t work.  I too got the most horrendous erros and couldn’t figure it out not even after check the WP.org forums. Thank goodness I found you through Google – having copied the right url from your site I finally got WP working!

  22. By jim on Jul 10, 2009 | Reply

    Installed WAMP and all seemed to go without any problem but when I click to start phpMyAdmin I get an acces den ied message
    MySQL said:
    #1045 - Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: NO)
    MySQL said:
    #1045 - Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: NO)

    Any help would be much appreciated.

  23. By julio alarcon on Jul 12, 2009 | Reply

    Setting up WordPress on a WampServer

    Hi, here trying to install WampServer on my Windows XP Laptop and then setting up my wordpress blog on that server locally on my computer.

    I already dragged the Wordpress folder to the wampserver www directory. The first problem I find is when I have to open phpMyAdmin from the wamp menu on the Task Bar to begin creating a New Database. It doesn’t do that, It opens a page that says:

    “Welcome to phpMyAdmin 2.11.6. Going down says: Error.My SQL said: #2003 – Can’t connect to MySQL server on ‘localhost’ (10061).”

    Do anybody knows How to solve this and continue with the process ?

    Best regards,
    Julio

  24. By Keith Davis on Jul 13, 2009 | Reply

    I was torn between using wampserver and XAMPP for my local wordpress instalation.
    Lots of advice on both on the web.
    In the end I settled for XAMPP on a machine running Vista.
    Not had any problems… thus far.

  25. By Arlene on Jul 18, 2009 | Reply

    You rock, thank you, I have tried this a bazillion times, and your way was finally successful…thank you thank you!

  26. By David on Jul 27, 2009 | Reply

    Hi, I am have alot of bother trying to get this working =(
    Have tried xampp and wamp but i cant seem to get it working.
    when i went to http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php it just seemd to be like a dead link. Any help would be great.

  27. By David on Jul 28, 2009 | Reply

    Got it working
    Thankyou.

  28. By Kim on Aug 28, 2009 | Reply

    Hi there,
    Newbie here. I just got a web host today, and would like to be able to actually work on the website offline (I’ll try setting my PC up according to the directions above to do so). But I’d like to know what I do when I have things updated. What files do I need to move to the host server so they go live? I figure the first time I move the entire Wordpress folder over, but after that I wouldn’t think I would have to move the entire folder over, but perhaps only certain files? (I don’t intend on using the blog feature, I’m just doing more of a website).  I just don’t like the idea of messing around with the files on the host server and having everything I do immediately go live! Any advice here would be great. Thanks.

  29. By Thomas on Sep 4, 2009 | Reply

    Very helpful and detailed post on setting up a local host to run Wordpress.  Thank you.  It makes setting up a local host almost as simple as setting up wordpress.

  30. By little star on Sep 7, 2009 | Reply

    Thank you soo much on this tutorial!!

  31. By Deina on Sep 23, 2009 | Reply

    OMG, I have been working at this for hours, and I followed all your directions and still, I’m getting a “404 Not Found” message when I paste http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php into my browser. Actually, my folder with the extracted wordpress stuff is named mysite, so I pasted http://localhost/mysite/wp-admin/install.php. Nothing. Help???????

  32. By Etienne on Oct 2, 2009 | Reply

    Thanks a LOT!!!
    Was banging my head against the wall all day before I found this page!

    Merci BEAUCOUP!

  33. By Aline on Oct 8, 2009 | Reply

    Hello,
    I’ve successfully set up Wordpress on a Wamp Server.
    But I’ve got some errors with the plugin : “Page Flip Image Gallery Version 0.5.7.8″

    “imagecreatefromjpeg() – function not exists.”
    “Error [002]: Write file error! Please setup permission to the books/ , images/ , sounds/ folders and include files to “777″”
    “Warning: unlink(……/wp-content/pageflip/images/t_i_UHiylMJjwxT4.JPG) [function.unlink]: No such file or directory on line 1239 in file ……\wp-content\plugins\page-flip-image-gallery\pageFlip.class.php”
    Please, explain to me, how I can fix it !!!
    Thanks a lot

  34. By Justin on Nov 12, 2009 | Reply

    Thanks for including a beer in your tutorial!

  35. By Radiculous on Jan 13, 2010 | Reply

    This tutorial has been very helpful for a noob (me) Thank you so much, Rebecca! :) almost blew my head trying to figure out how to install wordpress on a WAMP server. Thanks again :)

  36. By matt on Jan 16, 2010 | Reply

    How do I move a copy of wordpress that has multiple installs and also doesn’t keep 301ing to the live site?

  37. By Richard-wpg on Mar 10, 2010 | Reply

    Many- many thanks.
    It finally works

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