Help- Installing PHP?

[benjaminj88]

Alright well I just bought an HP Pavilion dv2 so that I can work on my website and what not while away from home. The computer came with wireless and what not so connecting to the internet is no problem but let's face it. When you are in the progression stages of testing, editting and testing again, then editing it's alot more usefull to have the ability to test your work on your own machine rather then have to upload it and what not.

So now I have been looking around to for articles to help me install php onto my system. I am somewhat stumped as far as how to go about doing so.

I understand that I need to create or install a webserver onto my computer. Now here's the thing what webserver should I go about using and what are the pros and cons of each?

In general if someone could point me to the Lame-Man's guide to installing php and all the resources needed to run php scripts on your computer or help me better understand how to go about doing so I would greatly appreciate it. Im running windows vista 64bit sp1 if that helps at all. Thanks again,

Ben~

[Magiccupcake]

I use a program called WAMPserver. download and install this program just like any other program. follow the steps in gives, it is very simple. This will set up a folder on your computer (I named 'server') inside this folder there will be one named "www". you can then set up site folders with the files for the site in it.

Run the program and then in your browser go to "http://localhost". This will give a list of all the site folders in the www folder. you will be able to run the php site just like it would on your web server.

This saves a lot of time, so you dont have to keep uploading the site to test the look.

There are some other programs like this, but WAMP is the one I like. I think some others are xamp, and appserv.

Hope this helps.