Setting Up Apache, PHP & MySQL On Windows

Installing MySQL

Finally we come to installing MySQL. Now that as soon as you begin programming in PHP you'll start creating database applications, but now that we are installing Apache and PHP, it's better to install MySQL too and be done with it.

Download the appropriate zipped file from http://www.mysql.com/downloads/ and unzip it into some folder other that mysql (better keep this folder reserved for the actual MySQL program). After unzipping it, run the setup file and install the whole thing is c:\mysql. MySQL is installed. It needs to run as a MySQL server in order to make it work with your PHP program.

In c:\mysql\bin there is a file namely "winmysqladmin.exe". Whenever you want to use MySQL, first run this program.

Another program that comes in handy while handling MySQL is MySQL-Front that you can download from http://www.mysqlfront.de/. We'll come back to this tool once we start studying about MySQL.