How to install WordPress on your Local Machine

In this article, you can find more info about the procedure for installing WordPress on your PC. It’s quite simple, and within minutes, you will be up and running with your local WordPress installation. This WP installation will operate as any other Custom WordPress Installation. You will be completely free to perform all sorts of major or minor operations without worrying about the outcome.

Now, before beginning with the how-to part, let’s discuss the possible benefits of doing so.

• You can go for extreme testing. In other words, you can try customizing the themes and plugins as you want them to be. Once you achieve the output, you can deploy the changes on your web server. This way, you always remain on the safer side. If something goes wrong, no harm will come to your website.
• You can easily test new plug-ins and experience their aftereffects.
• If you need to test some new workflow, you can consider testing that locally instead of burdening the live server. Also, the WordPress installed on your local machine will be more robust and responsive.

Technically, there is no difference between the WordPress on a site server and one running on the local server. It’s all about a few PHP files, a connected database for information storage, and the server. Here, the task of the server application is to interpret PHP files and execute the instructions embedded in them.

How to Install WordPress On Your Local Machine?

I implemented this setup on my PC with Windows 7 Ultimate Edition using the Wamp server. Let us now come to the point of focus.

• The foremost thing would be to install the Wamp server on your PC. The reason for selecting it is that Wamp manages most of the things on its own and requires the least user intervention. Download it from the official website for free. (Make sure that you download the correct version (32-bit or 64-bit) as per the version of Windows Installed on your PC).
  • Now run the executable and install it in any directory on your PC (“ D:\wamp ” in my case).
  • Specify “localhost” as the name of the host and an email address when prompted.
• Next, you can download the latest WordPress installation Zip on your computer. Now, you need to visit the ‘www’ directory inside the ‘Wamp’ folder and extract all files there. (“ D:\wamp\www ”)
• Now, make sure that the Wamp server is running (In green) and try opening “localhost” in the web server. Soon after that, you will be prompted about installing WordPress. This was an installation on my own PC, so I did not bother to create a configuration file beforehand.
• In the next step, you will be prompted about the configuration settings, i.e. name of an existing database, MySQL username, database password, Host, and the table prefix.
• * You can easily create a new database and assign a new user from “http://localhost/phpmyadmin/”.
• Now, after submitting those details, you will be asked to provide a name for the new website and create a new WordPress administrator.
• Finally, click on the “Install WordPress” button. Then, you can login to your dashboard and do anything.

This Installation will run locally on your PC with no dependency on a live internet connection. Still, for installing new themes and plug-ins, the internet will be required.

Most of the users face issues with permalinks. The issue can be fixed easily by enabling mod_rewrite. For that, select the wamp server icon from the system tray, then select “Apache modules” >> ”rewrite_modules”. You might require restarting the Wamp server manually.

Hopefully, no 404 errors will occur, and redirection will happen as per the instructions in the .htacess file.

There are a few limitations as well:

• This WordPress website cannot be accessed online.
• Not Idol for situations where you require testing URL-specific functionalities. For example: Social media tasks, Pingbacks, and other similar jobs.