Installing Apache on Windows

By Michael J. Ross
2008-02-20


Apache Already Installed?

Before you start installing a brand new instance of Apache on your development machine, you should first determine whether or not you already have an earlier version of Apache installed, and if so, what to do about it. First, check what Windows services are installed and possibly running on your PC. Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services, then click the Standard tab.

The third entry in the list shows that Apache 1.3.33 is currently running, with the status of "Started". You should stop the service manually, because uninstalling Apache is not sufficient to stop the service — at least for version 1.3.x. To stop the Apache service, right-click on the line, and in the context menu that pops up, choose "Stop". A dialog box will show the progress of Windows shutting down Apache.

If Apache is not listed in the Windows services, it may nonetheless be installed on your PC, but configured to only be run manually, and not registered as a service. Either way, you should next try to find any Apache installation, by looking in all directories where you have installed applications in the past. "C:\ Program Files" is the default installation directory. It is possible that you have more than one version of Apache installed, probably in separate directories whose names contain the version numbers.

In this example, we will assume that only a single instance of Apache, version 1.3.3, has previously been installed. To uninstall it, go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs. Click on the Apache entry in the list, and then click the "Remove" button.

Even after uninstalling Apache, there may be many files left behind, in three directories: conf, htdocs, and logs. To do a clean install, delete these leftover files and directories. But first save any configuration files that might be valuable to you in the future, such as conf\httpd.conf and htdocs\phpMyAdmin\config.inc.php.

Reboot your PC, and check the Windows services again. Usually uninstalling an application is sufficient to remove it from the services list. But if Apache is still listed, you can remove it by editing your Windows Registry. On the command line, run either "Regedit" or "regedt32". Make a backup of your Registry. Find and delete the Registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Apache. Reboot again, to fully update the services list.

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

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