How To Install WordPress Locally Using WAMP

Before getting started with installation, let`s get a brief idea about what WordPress is.

WordPress

WordPress is a free, open-source Content Management System (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL. It is one of the most popular online publishing platforms currently powering more than 20% of the web. It`s nice to have a local installation of WordPress to try new themes, plugins and play with it. Now let`s get started with the installation.

Requirements

1. Download the WAMP server.
   
   
2. Download the latest release of WordPress. The current version of WordPress as of writing this article is 4.2.2.

Procedure

1. Install the WAMP Server. After installation a small icon will appear in the task bar as in Figure 1.
   
   
   Figure 1: WAMP Server Icon In Taskbar
   
   
2. Now click on that icon and select the Localhost option to launch the WAMP server as in Figure 2.
   
   
   Figure 2: Launch WAMP Server
   
   
3. After selecting the Localhost option, we should get a page for the WAMP Server. But if you have Internet Information Service (IIS) enabled on your machine then you will get the page for Internet Information Service. Because the port number for IIS is 80 and the default port for WAMP server is also 80. To resolve this issue, we need to change the port number for the WAMP server. To change the port number for the WAMP server, click on the WAMP server icon and select httpd.conf (the location of this file is C:\wamp\bin\apache\apache2.4.9\conf) under the Apache menu as in Figure 3.
   
   
   Figure 3: Config File for Apache
   
   
4. It will open a file. Locate the following lines in that file.

   #Listen 12.34.56.78:80
   Listen 0.0.0.0:80
   Listen [::0]:80

   Now change the port number from 80 to whatever port number you like. (Try to select the port number above 1024 because port numbers from 0 to 1024 are system ports. In my case, I changed the port number from 80 to 8983.)
   
   After changing the port number, we need to restart the WAMP server. To restart the WAMP server, click on the same icon and select the Restart All Services option as in Figure 4.
   
   
   Figure 4: Restart WAMP Server
   
   After restart, enter http://localhost:8983/ URL in the browser where 8983 is the port number we specified in the httpd.conf file in Step 4. We should get a page for the WAMP server as in Figure 5.
   
   
   Figure 5: WAMP Server
   
   

5. Now extract the downloaded WordPress.zip. Create a new folder called WordPress (you can name it as you like) in the C:\wamp\www location. Copy all the extracted files and folders under our newly created folder at the C:\wamp\www location.
   
   
6. We need to create a database for the WordPress installation. For that purpose, select the phpmyadmin option from the WAMP server localhost page as in Figure 6.
   
   
   Figure 6: Phpmyadmin
   
   
7. Select the database option as in Figure 7 to create a new database.
   
   
   Figure 7: Select Database Option
   
   
8. Enter the name of database and click on the Create button (in my case, I entered the name of the database as wp_local) as in Figure 8.
   
   
   Figure 8: Create Database
   
   
9. Enter http://localhost:8983/wordpress for the URL in the browser where WordPress is the name of the folder that we created in Step 6. We will get a WordPress configuration page as in Figure 9. Select the language and click on the Continue button.
   
   
   Figure 9: WordPress Configuration Page
   
   
10. After clicking on the Continue button, a page will appear as in Figure 10. Click on the Let`s Go button.
    
    
    Figure 10: Instruction Page
    
    
11. After clicking on the Let`s Go button, the database configuration page will page appear as in Figure 11. We need to enter the name of the database that we created in Step 9 and username and password for MySQL. We need to enter root as the username and keep the password as blank. (The default user for MySQL is root and the password for that user is blank). After filling in the information click on the Submit button.
    
    
    Figure 11: WordPress Database Details
    
    
12. After clicking on the Submit button, we will get a page as in Figure 12. Now click on the Run the Install button.
    
    
    Figure 12: Run the Install
    
    
13. After clicking on Run the Install button, a Welcome page will appear as in Figure 13 where we need to provide the details about our site. Enter the information and click on the Install WordPress button.
    
    
    Figure 13: Site Details
    
    
14. After clicking on the Install WordPress button, we will get a success page as in Figure 14. Just click on the Log In button to get started with WordPress.
    
    
    Figure 14: WordPress Installation Success page
    
    
15. After clicking on the Log In button, it will again ask for the username and password that we entered in Step 14. We just need to enter those details once again and click on the Log In button. That`s it! We have now successfully installed WordPress on a local machine. After providing the credentials we will get a page for the WordPress admin dashboard as in Figure 15.
    
    
    Figure 15: WordPress Admin Dashboard

Conclusion

We successfully installed the WordPress on a local machine using WAMP server. I hope this helps you. I hope you enjoyed reading the article. If you have any problem when installation please comment below so that I can help you.