Setting Up WordPress Locally on Your Windows PC

WordPress is a widely used Content Management System (CMS) around the world. It provides an open-source platform for creating and managing any website, blog, or online store. However, before diving into a hosting service, it is recommended that you first set up WordPress locally on your Windows PC to save hosting fees and to get a safe and controlled environment for developers to test and experiment with different plugins or themes before going live.

Why Setup WordPress Locally on Windows?

There are several benefits of setting up WordPress locally on your Windows PC, some of them are as follows:

• Cost-effective: With local installation, you can develop and test your site offline without incurring any hosting fees.
• Learning new skills: Setting up WordPress locally provides the opportunity to learn new web development skills, which will help improve your knowledge and skills.
• Development Environment: Local installations offer a safe and controlled environment for developers to test and experiment with different plugins or themes before going live.

How to Setup WordPress Locally on Your Windows PC?

1. Install XAMPP on Your PC

XAMPP is an Apache web server distribution designed for Windows, Linux, and macOS. It includes Apache HTTP Server, MySQL, PHP, and Perl. To download XAMPP, visit the Apache Friends website and download the XAMPP installer for your version of Windows. Once the installer has downloaded, double-click on it and follow the on-screen instructions to install XAMPP.

2. Create a New Database

To run WordPress locally, you need to create a new database in XAMPP. Open up your web browser and type http://localhost/phpmyadmin in the address bar, which will bring up the phpMyAdmin page. Select Databases from the top menu bar, and create a new database by entering a name for it in the New Database field. Once you have entered a name, click on Create.

3. Download and Install WordPress

After set up XAMPP and the database, download the latest version of WordPress from the official website. Once downloaded, extract the files to your XAMPP htdocs folder.

4. Rename WordPress Configuration File

Locate the wp-config-sample.php file from the extracted WordPress files in the htdocs folder and rename it to wp-config.php.

5. Configure WordPress

Open the wp-config.php file in a text editor and enter the following details:

define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘yourdatabasename’);

define(‘DB_USER’, ‘yourusername’);

define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘yourpassword’);

define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’);

Replace yourdatabasename with the name of the database you created, yourusername with the username you created, and yourpassword with the password you created. Save the file.

6. Install WordPress

Open your web browser and type http://localhost/wordpress in the address bar. This will start the WordPress installation process. Follow the on-screen instructions to set up your WordPress site.

Conclusion

Setting up WordPress locally on your Windows PC is an excellent way to learn web development skills, test and experiment with themes and plugins, and develop websites offline without incurring hosting fees. Following the above steps, you can quickly set up WordPress on your Windows PC and start developing your website.