Installing Apache on Windows

By Michael J. Ross
2008-02-20


Installing Apache on Windows
Even though it is possible to do Web development and testing on a remote server, it is better to fully develop a new Web site on a local Web server, and then upload everything when it is finished, for many reasons:

1) Keeping the unfinished site off the Internet is safer, because as you begin developing the site, you probably have not put in all of your code for neutralizing any potential attacks against your site, including cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities.

2) You may already have sensitive data in the database for testing.

3) When you want to make future modifications to a site that is already live (i.e., on the Internet and available to the public), it is better to make changes (and mistakes!) on your PC, where they will be seen only by you. You don't want to risk disrupting the functioning of your production server.

4) If you prefer to work mobile, you can modify your site even without being connected to the Internet.

5) You can see those modifications without wasting time FTP-ing files up to the remote server.

Programmers new to Web development have likely heard of Web servers, but may not be completely sure as to what they are. The term "Web server" has two, albeit related, meanings: It refers to any computer program that receives HTTP requests from client programs — usually Web browsers running on remote computers — and responds to those requests by serving up data — usually Web pages and their elements. The term also refers to the computer running such a server program.

The two most commonly used Web servers in the world are Apache, offered by The Apache Software Foundation, and Internet Information Services (IIS), offered by Microsoft. Because this tutorial assumes that you are using Microsoft Windows, you have the option to use either Web server. I heartily recommend Apache, and that is what we will focus on here. IIS is built into Windows, and some developers may consider that reason enough to eschew IIS.

Regardless, Apache has some appreciable advantages: As the most popular choice, there are greater chances of finding information on it, and assistance from other programmers. Apache is free and open source, hence the code has received much greater scrutiny than proprietary alternatives, and thus probably has fewer bugs and, more importantly, security holes. Also, Apache runs on operating systems other than Windows, including Linux and Mac OS. If you are using Mac OS X, then Apache is already installed, but needs to be activated (System Preferences > Sharing > Personal Web Sharing).

For this tutorial, we will be using the most recent stable version of Apache, which as of this writing is version 2.2.8. In addition, we will be using Windows XP Service Pack 2. If you are using a different version of Windows, it is quite possible that the menu options that you will need to follow will be slightly different, and the dialog boxes and other screens will appear different from the figures in this tutorial. However, the equivalents for your own version of Windows should be easy to discern.

Tutorial Pages:
» Installing Apache on Windows
» Apache Already Installed?
» Downloading Apache
» Installing Apache
» Testing Apache
» Configuring Apache
» More Resources

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