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Please be patient with me. I was a photographer until a few weeks ago and I'm still in a learning phase.

I'm using dreamweaver cs5.5 and I want to look at pages designed using PHP. Problem is I'm asked for a testing server. Is there a way to view the pages without having to constantly upload the page to a server? (Ie: test it locally from my hard drive? )

Tabarnak69 wrote:Please be patient with me. I was a photographer until a few weeks ago and I'm still in a learning phase.

I'm using dreamweaver cs5.5 and I want to look at pages designed using PHP. Problem is I'm asked for a testing server. Is there a way to view the pages without having to constantly upload the page to a server? (Ie: test it locally from my hard drive? )

You would have to install PHP on your computer.

I suggest Googling for XAMPP.

Thank you.
I'm completly lost but I am sincerly greatful because I'm sure I'll figure it out. (I hope)

I actually believed it was going to be as easy as install then select preview in browser. (Boy was I wrong!)

XAMPP installs very easily... Then you can just load localhost in your browser... aka 127.0.0.1

This exactly where I get stuck. I plug in the local host and I get nothing. I'm reading the docs and I have to read another set of docs to try to make sense out of the first set.

You can also try easyphp, i have found it... well easier, even though i did work with xampp for a while too. You can read the really simple install stuff in their introduction page.

Now for some troubleshooting:

be sure to have xampp turned on when trying to access the localhost, you should see apache and mysql running like this http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u16bk0dXV48/T ... ontrol.gif

also try installing/running it as administrator if you have vista and beyond

and don't forget your php files have to be in the localhost folder (www or http or whatever)

I keep getting only "Apache 2 is starting..." and nothing else happens.

Tabarnak69 wrote:I keep getting only "Apache 2 is starting..." and nothing else happens.

Could be because you didn't install it as the administrator?

I would uninstall it and then redownload (or find the installer in your download folder) and this time right click and select run as administrator. I think it was trying to setup services to run in the background and didn't have the proper security level to do so.

vrocks wrote:

Tabarnak69 wrote:I keep getting only "Apache 2 is starting..." and nothing else happens.

Could be because you didn't install it as the administrator?

I would uninstall it and then redownload (or find the installer in your download folder) and this time right click and select run as administrator. I think it was trying to setup services to run in the background and didn't have the proper security level to do so.

I'm running XP and I did the install to a USB key option. The docs said to just extract and run the setup_xampp.bat

usb sticks can be dodgy, it might not have permission to run those kind of services and some come with all kinds of security software that can limit their functions

i suggest you try installing it on your hard drive first and make it work there, then mess around with a usb install