An essential for any aspiring theme developer is a local install of WordPress. There are plenty of benefits to doing so and there are also pitfalls if you don’t. I will tell you about the pitfalls in a second, but before that, I want to tell you 5 great reasons why you should use a local install as your sandbox as opposed to installing a live version on some subdomain of yours:

- Works exactly like the real deal; plugins and all
- No need to mess with FTP programs
- Develop anywhere (no connection needed)
- Make sure your theme is compatible with latest version of WordPress
- Code in secret, then release with a bang
I can personally attest that the last reason is a good one. While working on the current theme for this website, I accidentally pinged Technorati, which notified a bunch of people of my latest work. When this site finally got released, it was more of a fizzle instead of a bang. Anyhow, let’s get on to the tutorial.
Install WordPress Locally
-
Download and Extract XAMPP Lite
- Go to http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html#646
- Download XAMPP Lite.exe (the .exe is a smaller, faster download)
- Move the download to the root of your C drive C:\
- Run the .exe and the directory will be installed
-
Startup Apache and MySQL
- Open the xampplite folder
- Double click setup_xampp.bat
- After the program tells you to have fun, press any key on your keyboard
- Now double click on xampp-control.exe
- Now start the Apache and MySQL services

- If everything worked, you will see Running next to those 2 services
-
Create a New Database
- In your browser of choice, navigate to http://localhost/xampp/splash.php
- Click on your language
- On the left hand side, under Tools, click phpMyAdmin
- On that page, you will see the MySQL heading, like in the screenshot below

- Call the database wordpress and select utf8 unicode ci from the drop down menu
- Click Create
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Install WordPress
- Download and extract WordPress to your desktop
- In the extracted folder, open the file wp-config-sample.php in a text editor
- Edit the file to look like this:
define('DB_NAME', 'wordpress'); // The name of the database
define('DB_USER', 'root'); // Your MySQL username
define('DB_PASSWORD', ''); // ...and password
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost'); // 99% chance you won't need to change this value - Save the file as wp-config.php
- Now open up the Xammplite folder on your C drive and then open the htdocs folder
- Copy the whole Wordpress folder here
- Finally, use your browser and navigate to http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php
Its easy to install it. Even on a server, it’s not difficult.
Well I was browsing the internet today and I entirely freaked out. I absolutely found my ex-girlfriend pictures on the internet. I have no idea when she did this but my ex-girlfriend was making at liberty with some other teen.
Does anyone be struck by any info on this ex-girlfriend site?
Thanks david.. it’s really help me a lot..
Thanks David, it saved me a lot of time since I am a newbie to WP.
I am going to try this install this weekend! I would love to be able to tweak everything before I use up loads of bandwidth refreshing
I’ve just installed WP 2.9.1 locally with XAMPP Windows 1.7.3 in my Vista PC.
How To Install WordPress Locally With XAMPP
i love that people like you share your newbie helping info with people like me. thankyou!