Hi, how are you? Today I’m going to talk to you about PHP. It is a general-purpose server-side code and interpreted programming language, also is suitable for web development and can be embedded in HTML. Additionally, PHP has multiple ways of being used, since it can be used with scripts, in a structured way or programming in objects. Likewise, it is mainly used to create web pages, to create dynamic content and to work with databases and HTML. On the other hand, it supports most databases: MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, MongoDB. Because of these features, millions of web pages use PHP. Therefore, let’s see how to install PHP in Windows 10.
Prerequisite
In this post, we are going to use the PHP language on an Apache server. Obviously it must be successfully configured in Windows. To find out how to do it, please look here.
Downloading PHP
The first thing we have to do is download the latest version of PHP. With this in mind, please go to the download section and select the latest version (VC15 x64).
Installing PHP
Once you have downloaded the file, unzip it to the root of the Windows installation. For ease of use rename the folder as php. Finally, the route would be as follows: C:\php. Finally, we have to add the environment variable for php to run from any Command Prompt. For instructions on how to do this, please read here. Please edit the Path variable and add the following address: C:\php.
You can prove that the configuration is successful by running any php command on a CMD, such as php -v:
Configure Apache to run PHP
Next, we are going to configure the Apache server to correctly interpret the php language. With this in mind, we are going to edit the httpd.conf file located in the following path: C:\Apache24\conf. Once the file is selected, open it with your favorite text editor.
After opening the file, please locate the Directory Index line. Just leave a space after index.html and add index.php.
With this modification, we are instructing the server to search for both an index.html file and an index.php file. Next, we will edit the server configuration file to allow loading the PHP module. With this intention, copy the following lines of code:
LoadModule php7_module C:/php/php7apache2_4.dll
<IfModule php7_module>
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .php
PHPIniDir "C:/php"
</IfModule>Please move through the configuration file to line 72 LoadModule foo_module modules/mod_foo.so. Press enter to leave a blank line and add the previous code.
Finally, save the file. Please note that to make the changes effective on the server, you have to stop and restart the service from Windows Services. The following command runs services.msc, once the window is open it locates the Apache server. Then I restart, clicking on the icon that I show you in the image:
These are the previous steps to install PHP in Windows 10.
Running PHP
In order for the Apache server to correctly interpret the PHP language, it is necessary to rename the index.html file located in the following path: C:\Apache24\htdocs. Once the file is selected, change its extension to .php. In this way, the server will correctly interpret the PHP language.
All right, all settings are ready. Now let’s modify this file to run a simple PHP command. In this case Echo. With this in mind, please edit the file with the following configuration:
<html>
<body>
<h1>it works!</h1>
<?php
echo "Hello from osradar!";
?>
</body>
</html>In the text editor, it should look like this:
We save the file and open localhost in the web browser. If we have done everything correctly, then we should see this result:
Finally, we have seen how to install PHP in Windows 10. This language is very popular worldwide, so being able to count on it is a great advantage for our projects. This is all for now, I hope to see you soon!
Thank you for the great tutorial. The only thing I would note is that the code above for http.conf has been changed with version 8 of php and should read:
LoadModule php_module C:/php/php8apache2_4.dll
<IfModule php_module>
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .php
PHPIniDir "C:/php"
</IfModule>