How to configure WAMP Server on Windows for local WordPress Development

So you have installed WAMP server and now we need to configure it. In this post I will show you how to configure WAMP Server on Windows for local WordPress development.

If you are coming from my previous post then you should be seeing a green icon on your system tray and are now ready to move to the next steps. Ok, lets get going..

Set WAMP Server to run on automatic

Lets make WAMP server start when Windows starts and make its services run automatically. By default, they will be set to manual.

Configure the ‘Startup Type‘ under Window services to automatic for both wampapache64 and wampmysqld64 services.

Now you will want to make wampmanager.exe start when Windows starts.

The easiest way to do this is to place the wampmanager.exe shortcut inside the Windows Startup folder.

The Startup folder is under  Start –> All Programs –> Startup. If you Right Click –> Open you can drag the WAMP short-cut to it.

Enable Apache rewrite_module

This module will need to be enabled in order to use custom permalinks in WordPress. To enable the Apache module – ‘rewrite_module‘ go to Apache –> Apache modules –> rewrite_module and click on it. A check mark will appear right next to it and WAMP server will re-start. The httpd.conf  file will be adjusted accordingly.

Configure PHP.ini

Open php.ini (C:\wamp\bin\php\php5.5.x) and do the following:

Enable wamp server to display errors, if not enabled..

Enable error reporting. Just un-comment the following lines by deleting ‘ ; ‘ from the begining of the line.

Increase the maximum size of POST data that php will accept – I changed the value from 3M (default) to 50M.

Set the MySQL root password

By default, the root account will have no password. It is always good practice to set one up, even if you are developing locally.

There are a few ways to do this but I will show you the one I consider the simplest.

Go to http://localhost/phpmyadmin/ and click on USER

On one of the root accounts click on ‘Edit Privileges’. Enter the new password twice and click on ‘GO’. Do this for the remaining root accounts. I suggest making the password the same for all three accounts.

You may be logged out of PHPMyAdmin after you changed the root@localhost password, in this case you may see the following error.

No worries, we will configure PHPMyAdmin with the correct password on the next step.

Configure PHPMyAdmin

Open the config.inc.php file found in C:\wamp\apps\phpmyadmin4.1.x and look for /* Authentication type */ around line 28.

Set your password for the root account by entering it between the single quotes ‘ ‘ in the following line:

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = 'mypassword';

Replace mypassword with your own password of course.

Final Checks

Once you enter your password, save the file and go back to http://localhost/phpmyadmin/

You should have PHPMyAdmin working now. Going to http://localhost/ should also take you to the home page.

If all of the above is working then you should be ready ‘to-go’.

You now have a local web server running Apache, MySQL, and PHP in Windows.

You can now start creating a databases and installing WordPress or any other database driven CMS.

I hope this has helped you get started on your WordPress development projects.

In a future post, I will cover how to create a database and install WordPress locally for those needing further help.

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Let me know if you have any questions or comments. Thank you for stopping by.