How to Setup WordPress Locally on Windows

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When designing WordPress themes, it’s nice to be able to store them locally to test them instead of uploading files to a web server. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to set up WordPress locally on your PC and then manage multiple blogs with their own themes.

The first thing you’ll need to do is make sure you have WAMP installed and running on your PC. If you don’t, follow this tutorial first, and come back here when you’re done.

Next, you’ll need to have the latest version of WordPress.

After WAMP is up and running, drop that latest version of WordPress into the folder that your sites are stored in. This would be the ‘localhost’ folder that your sites are kept in.

Next, we need to create a database for WordPress. Single-click the semicircle WAMP icon on the toolbar. Select ‘phpMyAdmin’ from the menu that pops up.

Now you should see the phpMyAdmin interface in your browser. Under ‘Create a new database’, which is near the middle of the page, type what you want to call your database. If you plan on running multiple blogs, you may want to name it something other than ‘wordpress’. Leave the drop-down box alone, and click ‘Create’.

You can now leave the phpMyAdmin interface.

Next, find the ‘wp-config-sample’ file in the root WordPress folder. Open it up in Notepad (recommended), and change the following values:

define('DB_NAME', 'wordpress'); // new database name
define('DB_USER', 'root'); // MySQL username (root is default)
define('DB_PASSWORD', ''); // no password assigned by default
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost);

Save the file as ‘wp-config.php’ in the same folder. You should now be able to open up ‘http://localhost/WordPress root/wp-admin/install.php’ (substitute ‘WordPress root’ for the location of your WordPress folder). Proceed with a normal WordPress installation.

If you want to run multiple blogs with their own themes, all you have to do is repeat this process, and give each database a new name. You can use the same database if you like – some people prefer to have certain sample posts to test things.

22 thoughts on “How to Setup WordPress Locally on Windows”

  6. Being new to WordPress and wanting to have a dabble at design then I found this guide to me very useful indeed.

    I must read some more of your posts if they are as good as this one.

    Thanks,

    Paul

  9. WOW! It really seems like we’re all writing about this at the same time.

    Could it be WordPress 2.5 inspiring everyone to test it out?

    🙂

  10. Thanks for the article I just added is to my del.icio.us

    This is also a great to minimize downtime when redesigning a wordpress blog as you can test everything out locally before you do anything on your server. Thanks for the great tutorial.

  11. WAMP is great, I was having some trouble with a previous release and had to give up on it, it just would not run. Their latest version runs great and I have had no trouble at all.

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  14. Мысль не новая, но изложено интересно. Я с Ваашего позволения процитирую у себя в блоге.

  20. А как бы мне подписаться на Вашу RSS? Не могу найти ссылку :(. Напишите на 54632два1 в ICQ или masha_golovanova в skype. В крайнем случае – используйте почту. Заранее спасибо всем неравнодушным.

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