Setup WordPress in Local Machine

Word Press Local Setup

WordPress is a very popular Content Management System(CMS) used by blogging sites around the world. Its architecture allows to add plug-ins and widgets, so we can build a customized plug-in / widget and add it to WordPress site that is already hosted.

To develop Plug-ins/ widgets we first need to set WordPress in our local machine since it would be difficult to test the plug-ins/ widgets in live environment all the time.

WordPress is built using PHP and MySQL so first you need to install PHP& MySQL.

WordPress Setup Instructions:

i)                    First Download XAMPP and Install it. It is free and it installs PHP, MySQL and Apache Web Server and configures it for you.

ii)                   To check if everything is working open "XAMPP Control Panel" in your machine and click on start for Apache and MySQL.

 iii)                    Open a Web Browser and enter “localhost” if the XAMPP Page opens, XAMPP is successfully installed.

 iv)                   Next you need to download the latest version of Word Press. Go to http://wordpress.org/download/ and download WordPress.

v)                    Extract the zip file and place in the “<XAMPP INSTALLATION PATH>\XAMPP \htdocs” folder.

 vi)                    Next you need to create a database to install WordPress. Open "PhpMyAdmin" by going to http://localhost/phpmyadmin/ or click on PhpMyAdmin in the XAMPP Page 

vii)           In PhpMyAdmin click on Databases and create a new database ‘wp_wordpress’

viii)                  Go to XAMPP\htdocs\wordpress folder and open ‘wp-config-sample.php’ and edit it. Change the ‘database_name_here’ to database name created in above step ‘db_wordpress’. The default user name and password for MySQL is ‘root’ and empty password. So change the ‘username_here’ to ‘root’ and ‘password_here’ to ‘’. [Note: Don't use default username and password when you are hosting the site].

ix)                     Save the file and rename it from ‘wp-config-sample.php’ to ‘wp-config.php’.

x)            Now open http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php in web browser

xi)           Fill the Site Title, Username, password, twice and email and click on Install Wordpress

xii)          WordPress will be installed and success message will be displayed.

xiii)                 Now you can go to the admin page by going to http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/ , it has settings for administrator to customize the site like changing the theme, add plug-ins, widgets etc.

xiv)               You can go to the blog site by going to “localhost/wordpress”

You have now successfully configured WordPress in local machine.