Problems in installing PmWiki, PHP and Apache

These problems relate to Apache 2.2.8, pmwiki-2.2.0-beta65 and php-5.2.6. Here is some advice on getting PmWiki to work on your Windows XP system.

First, make sure that none of the installation dowloads that end with .msi are encrypted!

Installation

• Install Apache, PHP and PmWiki in this order.
• Install Apache and PHP in the root directory (C:\apache and C:\php).
• Unzip PmWiki into C:\apache\htdocs\pmwiki.

Apache problems

If Apache installs but would not run, look at the error message. Most likely it will say that it can't allocate the port 0.0.0.0:80 because it is already in use. You have two choices:

• Find the offending application and stop it from using port 80.

To find the offending application, download Port Reporter from Microsoft and install it. Then start Services (under administrative tools) and enable Port Reporter. Look in the application's log file (in Windows\System32\Log Files\Port Reporter). If you are running Skype, it is probably using port 80. Change Skype's default (in Tools | Options | Advanced | Connection).

• In httpd.conf, set the listening port to 8080 (make sure that Apache is in the list of permitted applications in Windows firewall).

PHP problems

• Install the default options. Do not install the full application.
• Tell the installation that you wish to use Apache 2.2 as a module.
• After the installation, edit httpd.conf and make sure that

PHPIniDir "C:/PHP/"
LoadModule php5_module "C:/PHP/php5apache2_2.dll"

is in there (bottom of the file). No more and no less.

If, you want Apache itself (not necessarily through PmWiki) to process php scripts, then add

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .htm .html

to httpd.conf.

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