AppServ is a Windows program that can help you install Apache, PHP, MySQL and phpMyAdmin on your computer and start using content management systems such as PHP-Nuke, Joomla, and WordPress on your PC immediately. In this quick guide, we will show you how to install it on your Windows 10, configure Apache, PHP, MySQL on your local PC.
It is free and open source, you can download it from Sourceforge here. Make sure to download AppServ 9.3.0, the latest version, which supports Windows 10 64bit only. You will get an exe file in the Downloads folder on your computer. Double click to run the AppServ setup wizard.
Click Next and follow the instructions in the setup wizard.
The first step is to choose install location, a folder on your hard drive to save the AppServ server files. By default, the Destination Folder is set to C:\AppServ.
AppServ Installation locations and the problems
You can change a different disk and create a new folder for AppServ if like. But we found it is problematic to install AppServ to a subfolder. For example, you can install it to c:\AppServ, d:\AppServ, but you can’t install it to C:\Program Files\AppServ, or other subfolders, like C:\software\AppServ. When we install AppServ to Windows Program Files folder, even the Apache service can’t be started, so we can’t open localhost from web browser. When installing AppServ to other sub-directories, we ran into MySQL server login failure issues. In case you can’t visit localhost, start Apache, start MySQL, connect the MySQL server or login MySQL root account from phpMyAdmin when you installed AppServ to another location, you can uninstall it and install it to its default directory see if any help.
On the next screen, choose components you want to install on your local computer, Apache HTTP Server, MySQL Database, PHP Hypertext Preprocessor, phpMyAdmin. Make sure all of them are selected unless you know which component you don’t need. Most CMS, like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, are database driven. They require Apache, MySQL, PHP and phpMyAdmin.
On the Apache HTTP Server Information window, type in your email address as the Administrator’s Email Address. Leave others, Server Name, Apache HTTP Port, Apache HTTPS Port, unchanged.
Enter root password for your MySQL Server twice on the next MySQL Server Configuration window. Hit Install button to start installing all selected components and services on your Windows computer. Then start both Apache and MySQL server and follow on-screen tips to complete the installation wizard.
How to use AppServ?
On the left end of the Windows taskbar, Click the Start icon. Find AppServ from the app list, click to expand it and find options like AppServ Restart, AppServ Start, AppServ Stop, MySQL Start, MySQL Stop, etc.
In the installation directory, you can find Apache24, MySQL, php7 and www folders. www is the directory root for web page files. Make sure store website files to this folder. Access localhost to visit your website using a web browser, such as Edge, Chrome, Firefox, etc.
AppServ alternatives
There are several others tools can also be used for creating web applications and PHP development on your local machine, such as XAMPP, MAMP SERVER, WampServer, etc. Here’s how users can create WordPress site on Mac using XAMPP, just as an example.
It is not working in Windows10