Installing Magento on XAMPP 1.7.3

Long time not playing with Magento and trying to install magento on my XAMPP 1.7.3 with unchanged php.ini. Installing Magento on XAMPP bit tricky and needs to add system wide changes let’s say hosts on your c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts. In Linux kernel based OS this thing is easy like Sunday morning; sudo pico /etc/hosts.

What you gonna do to install magento on your Windows XP and above version? This following step that I was doing for Magento installation.

You need a cup of coffee and plenty of time to install Magento on your XAMPP

I am not kidding, you do really need a cup of coffee or tea.

You got to create a hostname resolve to 127.0.0.1 at your hosts file

If you’re on UAC make sure you’re running notepad as Administrator, you just need administrator group privilege to be able edit that file. Windows is not very secure operating system *cough*.

1. File > Open > Type this on file input box %windir%\system32\drivers\etc\
2. Now, make sure you you choose All Files filter.
3. There you go, do you see a file named hosts ?
4. Open it, then type or add this

   127.0.0.1 www.localhost.me

   You could change that hostname to whatever you want and make sure that you add an FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name)

5. Save it and close it
6. Press Windows + R
7. Type cmd
8. then type
   ping www.localhost.me
9. If you’re getting reply like this

   Pinging www.localhost.me [127.0.0.1] with 32 bytes of data:
   Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
   Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
   Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
   Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
   
   Ping statistics for 127.0.0.1:
       Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
   Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
       Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms

   then you’re ready to go

Maybe you want to try accessing http://www.localhost.me/ on your browser, if you see normal thing like you always see on http://localhost/ then nothing to worry about.

Adjust your php.ini to accomodate Magento installation process.

This is the biggest problem, well yeah, shared hosting most of the time denied Magento because of exhausted process. No need to argue with it because there’s many VPS with same cost like shared hosting charged.

1. Browse to your XAMPP installation, find php folder and go to it.
2. find and open php.ini, normally notepad will open it to you
3. then find these two configuration and change them

   max_execution_time = 60
   max_input_time = 60
   
   change to
   
   max_execution_time = 120
   max_input_time = -1

   If you still find time out you may increase max_execution_time value, Magento php.ini sample is set to 18000 *wow 5 hours for a script*

I found that max_execution_time doesn’t affecting the process on XAMPP but max_input_time does, that’s why I was set -1 (unlimited time) but you could change to arounds 900 if you desire.

My PC, QuadCore 8400 4GB RAM, runs Magento installation about 2 – 4 minutes. This happen because of SQL command sequence between PHP with MySQL, I just saw one connection on process list.

Restart you Apache

Make sure to restart Apache before continuing.

Fire up your favorite browser

Now, you could start installing Magento on http://www.localhost.me/magento or wherever you put Magento.

You may want to use SSL / HTTPS. XAMPP comes with SSL support (port 443) and you could enable SSL on Magento installation as you wish.

Unfortunately, there’s no more steps to write. You may want to read Installing on Windows with XAMPP and WAMP on Magento site to add more understanding.

Thank you for reading.