How to be a WordPress WIMP

August 7, 2004

I’ve pretty much been a Microsoft person for my entire career and have only rarely crossed the threshhold into the Anything But Microsoft (ABM) camp. I’ve used Blogger (an online blog tool) and .Text (a .Net blog application) and was left wanting more control and a refined user experience.

Unfortunately, it appeared that the cream of the crop in web log apps ran on the LAMP platform (Linux + Apache + MySQL + Perl/PHP/Python). Since all of my experience and my site is with WISA (Windows + IIS + SQL Server + ASP.Net), I thought I was out of luck. However, a little bit more research showed that you can put together all sorts of viable combinations of acronyms. In my case, I wanted to be a WIMP (Windows + IIS + MySQL + Perl/PHP/Python).

Someday I want to learn more about Linux and Apache (and I may with Knoppix) but for now, I need to stick with Windows and IIS. So, specifically for WordPress, I needed to get MySQL and PHP installed and running on my server. This is my attempt to document this process since a lot of the given documentation doesn’t directly address being a total newbie to the WIMP platform. NOTE: The documentation that comes with and is available online for MySQL and PHP is very thorough and very good. However, it is a bit generic and can get a little confusing when all you want to do is install it and go.

Specifically, the directions in this post is directed at the following versions:

• Windows Server 2003
• IIS 6.0
• MySQL 4.0.2d
• PHP 4.3.8

Windows Server 2003 and IIS 6.0
This post assumesthat you have Windows Server 2003 and IIS 6.0 running on your machine. You will need to find some other source of instructions for configuring them if you don’t know how.

Installing and configuring MySQL database server
I’m really just pulling out the highlights from section 2.2.1 Installing MySQL on Windows but with a specific focus on the quickest path to getting it up and running.

1. Go to MySQL Downloads and download MySQL 4.0 database server. Select the Windows (x86) download that comes with the installer. Save the downloads to a directory on the machine you are installing on. I wanted to keep all of my non-microsoft apps in one location, so I created a c:\ABM folder (ABM = Anything But Microsoft) and saved the file there.
2. Install the MySQL database server and Administrator client. I installed to C:\ABM\MySQL.
3. Once installed, create a file called my.ini and save it to C:\WINDOWS. Open this file in your favorite text editor and add the following:

   <br /> [mysqld]<br /> basedir=C:/ABM/MySQL/<br /> datadir=C:/ABM/MySQL/data<br />

   Save and close the file.

4. To verify that MySQL is installed correctly, open a command prompt window and run the following:

   <br /> C:\ABM\MySQL\bin\mysqld –console<br />

   You should then see something along the lines of:

   <br /> 040807 13:06:46 InnoDB: Started<br /> C:\ABM\MySQL\bin\mysqld: ready for connections.<br /> Version: ‘4.0.20a-debug’ socket: ” port: 3306<br />

5. To close the running instance of MySQL, open another command prompt window and type:

   <br /> C:\ABM\MySQL\bin\mysqladmin -u root shutdown<br />

6. To get MySQL running as a Windows service, type the following:

   <br /> C:ABM\MySQL\bin\mysqld-nt –install<br />

   See 2.2.1.4 Selecting a Windows server for more information on which version to run. Note: You might think that you could change to the C:\ABM\MySQL\bin directory and run all of your commands successfully from there. In theory, you should be able to do that. However, I ran across an issue where I couldn’t get the service to run/install until I actually ran it with the complete path.

7. Go to the Services control panel and start the MySQL service.

Installing and configuring MySQL Administrator

1. Go to MySQL Downloads and download the MySQL Administrator graphical client. Select the Windows (x86) download that comes with the installer. Save the download to the same directory that you saved the MySQL database server installer to.
2. Install the MySQL database server and Administrator client. I installed to C:\ABM\MySQL\GUITools\MySQL Administrator.
3. Run MySQL Administrator.
4. You will need to add a new Connection in order to connect to your database. Use the following settings:
   • Connection: localhost
   • Username: root
   • Password: leave this blank, we haven’t changed the default password yet.
   • Hostname: localhost
   • Apply changes
5. Once you are in MySQL Administrator, click on the User Administration icon.
6. Click on the ‘root’ User Account below and change the password.
7. Click on the ” (the guest/anonymous) User Account below and change the password.
8. You will need to add a new database for your WordPress installation. Click on Catalogs. Right-click in the Schemata section, and select Create new Schema and give it a name (wordpress is good).
9. You then need to create a new user to access this database. Click on User Administration. Right-click in the Users Accounts section and select Add new User. Enter a name in MySQL User field and enter the passwords. Click on Apply Changes
10. Right-click on the user you just created and select Add Host from which the User can connect. Enter localhost.
11. Click on the Schema Privileges tab for that user.
12. You need to assign the correct privileges to your new user to be able to work with your new database. Be sure that the localhost node under your new user is selected. Then under the Schemata column, select your WordPress database. Then click the << button to assign all privileges to your new user when connecting through localhost.
13. Optionally, you can also click on the top node of the user and assign the same privileges for logging in locally to MySQL administrator with that account but most likely you will be logging in with the root account anyway.
14. Apply Changes
15. You can close the MySQL Administrator. Don’t forget that when you come back, you will need to change the password on the initial connection you created.

Installing and configuring PHP

1. Go to PHP Downloads and download the PHP 4.3.8 zip package under PHP 4.3.8 Windows Binaries. We don’t want PHP 5 because WordPress 1.2 apparently has some issue running on that version. In addition, we don’t want the Installer version because it doesn’t come with all the extensions that we may want.
2. Extract the zip file to C:ABM. This should create a C:\ABM\php-4.3.8-Win32 directory structure which can be renamed to C:\ABM\PHP
3. In C:\ABM\PHP, copy the php4ts.dll file to C:\WINDOWS
4. In C:\ABM\PHP, rename the php.ini-recommended file to php.ini and copy it to C:\WINDOWS directory.
5. Create a file called test.php and add the following line of code:

   <br /> < ? phpinfo() ?><br />

6. To test if PHP is working correctly open a command prompt window and run:

   <br /> C:\ABM\PHP\php.exe C:\ABM\PHP\test.php<br />

   You should see a lot of HTML text rendered to the command prompt window.

Configuring IIS for PHP

1. Open the IIS Management Console
2. Right-click on the Web Sites folder and choose Properties
3. On the Home Directory tab, click the Configuration… button
4. On the Mappings tab, click the Add… button
5. On the Add/Edit Application Extension Mapping form, the Executable path should be C:\ABM\PHP\sapi\php4isapi.dll and the Extension should be .php
6. Click OK to add the mapping and OK again to close the Application Configuration window.
7. On the Documents tab, you will need to add index.php
8. For best results, restart IIS.

Installing and configuring WordPress

1. If you have made it this far, then we are doing pretty good. Go to WordPress > Downloads and download the latest release.
2. Now the 5 Minute Installation directions should work.

Popularity: 37% [?]

Share This

Comments

• Sponsored Links

• Recent Posts

  • ACL Fest iTunes Music Sampler Download Codes
  • Gustavugees
  • Antivirus XP 2008 and avxp2008.com
  • Antivirus 2009 and browserprotectioncenter.com
  • C# using Directive
  • What is the difference between a computer virus and spyware?
  • Removing Antivirus 2009 - Round 3
  • SIGG Can’t Keep Up With Water Bottle Demand
  • XP Antivirus 2008 and Antivirus 2009 - Round 2
  • XP Antivirus 2008 and Antivirus 2009 are evil!

• Sponsored Links

• Categories

  • .Net
  • AJAX
  • ASP.Net
  • CSS
  • eBay
  • General
    • Google
  • IIS
  • Microsoft
  • Projects
    • DynamicImage
  • Recommended
  • Spam
  • WordPress
    • Plugins

• Archives

  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • August 2007
  • April 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • April 2006
  • March 2006
  • February 2006
  • January 2006
  • December 2005
  • November 2005
  • October 2005
  • May 2005
  • December 2004
  • November 2004
  • October 2004
  • September 2004
  • August 2004

• Links

  • 
  • Alex King
  • alexking.org: Blog > E-mail Signature?
  • Community Server 2.0 Beta 2 — now available!
  • CS 2.0 Beta 3 is now available…..
  • Gadgetopia
  • HALT data for P1130 21″ Trinitron monitor - Monitors - Dell Community Forum
  • Joel on Software
  • Looking for an adequate BitTorrent client to replace Azureus
  • Mike Industries
  • MyHomePoint
  • Optimus Keyboard | Gadgetopia
  • PhotoMatt
  • Scobleizer - Microsoft Geek Blogger » I made Phil Ripperger stand in line for an Xbox 360
  • SimpleBits
  • Smcculloch.Net - Modules, Skins, Skin Objects > Forums > AVCalendar Foster Home?
  • Smitty.net
  • Solutions Design::TinyForum::List all messages of thread: MyHomePoint.com
  • Solutions Design::TinyForum::List all messages of thread: Ruby on Rails
  • The Post Money Value: The New Digital Life
  • WordPress
  • Zawodny: Slashdot Will Die in 2006 | Gadgetopia
  • Zeldman

• Subscribe

  • Subscribe to RSS
  • Comments

• Meta

  • Log in
  • WordPress
  • XHTML