How to install OpenCart in XAMPP Windows 11

OpenCart is an open-source shopping cart solution. It is an online store management system. It was developed by OpenCart Ltd. and was initially released on April 2010 which is quite long time ago. So, this system is also on old one. To remain in the market for a very long time means that it is good. And for this tutorial, we are going to make a store or e-commerce website using OpenCart. Make sure to download first the given two files below before doing the listed tutorials.

Requirements:

• XAMPP 8.0.x, download here [via Mediafire]
• Opencart-4.0.1.1, download here [via Mediafire]

Assuming that you already downloaded the files, do the steps below.

Table of Content

• XAMPP installation on Windows 11
• Running XAMPP Control Panel's Apache and MySQL
• Copying OpenCart installer to HTDOCS folder
• Creating OpenCart Database on XAMPP phpMyAdmin
• OpenCart installation via Localhost or 127.0.0.1
• Accessing OpenCart website home page
• Accessing OpenCart website ADMIN account

Here are the steps on how to install OpenCart in XAMPP using your Windows pc

XAMPP installation on Windows 11

1. Go to the XAMPP file that you downloaded earlier. Double-click to open. If a Question about antivirus running appears, click YES.

2. In the Warning about User Account Control, just click OK.

3. In the Setup - XAMPP, click on NEXT.

4. In the Select Components, just click NEXT.

5. In the Installation folder, just leave it also and click NEXT.

6. In Language, select English, click NEXT to proceed.

7. You are now ready to install XAMPP, click NEXT to start.

8. Wait for the unpacking and installation to finish.

9. When finished, just uncheck the "Do you want to start Control Panel now?" and press Finish to exit.

Running XAMPP Control Panel's Apache and MySQL

1. To run xampp, you can click the shortcut located in your desktop or go to Start and search for "xampp" and press ENTER.

2. Inside XAMPP Control Panel, just click the Start buttons for Apache and MySQL.

3. Apache and MySQL are both running now if you see two Stop buttons.

4. If you also see a Windows Security Alert, click on Allow access to exit.

Copying OpenCart installer to HTDOCS folder

1. Back to the OpenCart zip file that also downloaded earlier. Extract it and name your extracted folder as "opencart" for this tutorial. Make sure all the contents of the opencart folder is not inside a sub-folder. Copy your opencart folder. Now, go to Start and search for "this pc" and press ENTER.

2. Inside This PC, click your C drive.

3. Inside C drive, click xampp.

4. Now find and open htdocs folder.

5. Inside htdocs, paste your opencart folder.

Creating OpenCart Database on XAMPP phpMyAdmin

1. We are now going to create a database for OpenCart installation. Open your internet browser. In the address bar type in 127.0.0.1 and press ENTER.

2. Inside, click phpMyAdmin.

3. Click Databases inside phpMyAdmin.

4. In the Create database, name your database as opencart_db for this tutorial. Leave utf8mb4_general_ci as it is and press Create.

5. In the Create new table, name your table as opencart_table, leave 4 as the value for columns and press Create again.

6. In the Structure, name it as opencart and leave INT as the value of Type.

7. For Collation, select utf8_unicode_ci and leave all the other fields as blank.

8. And save your work.

OpenCart installation via Localhost or 127.0.0.1

1. To start the OpenCart website installation, open your internet browser. In the address bar, type 127.0.0.1/opencart/upload and press ENTER.

2. In the License agreement, just click Continue.

3. In the Pre-installation, make sure the Status for all the PHP Settings are OK (green check) as well as for PHP extensions. If there is a GD error, then do the mini-tutorial below to fix it first.

How to fix GD error during OpenCart installation

• Go to c:\xampp\php and find php.ini
• Right-click open with Notepad
• Find ";extension=gd"
• From ;extension=gd change it to extension=gd
• Save Notepad
• Restart XAMPP
• Restart OpenCart installation

4. If you also have Missing statuses regarding config.php, then, you also need to fix them first. Continue to the next step below.

5. Go to This PC > C drive> xampp > htdocs > opencart > upload. Inside upload folder, find and rename config-dist.php as config.php.

6. Do the same for the config-dist.php file located inside the admin folder. Admin folder is inside your upload folder also. Rename it as config.php.

7. Restart your installation, your Statuses for both files should be Writable now. If so, click Continue to proceed.

8. Now, in the Configuration for "Please enter your database connection details.", most of the fields are already ready. In the Database, type opencart_db (see image below). For Username, password and email, just enter your username as admin and type your desired password (do not forget your password), and also type your email address. Press Continue to proceed.

9. And your OpenCart website installation is done. You will see the "Don't forget to delete your installation directory!" message.

10. Just go to This PC > C drive > xampp > htdocs > opencart > upload > install. Delete the install folder.

Accessing OpenCart website home page

1. To open your OpenCart website homepage, just go to 127.0.0.1/opencart/upload.

Accessing OpenCart website ADMIN account

1. To open your admin account, go to 127.0.0.1/upload/admin. Enter your username and password and press Login.

2. If the "Important Security Notification!" appears regarding Storage path, just press Move to proceed.

3. If another notification appears, about "Rename admin directory" just rename your path. For this tutorial, I named it as "secret". When done, press Rename button to confirm.

4. And you are now inside your OpenCart website administration page. You will see there options and settings that is only available to you as owner and admin of your website. You have there the Dashboard, Catalog, Extensions, Design, Sales, Customers, Marketing, System and Reports.

I do hope you have learned a lot while doing this tutorial guys. If you have question, just leave a comment below. Thank you!