How to install PmWiki in XAMPP Windows 11

PmWiki is a free wiki-based content-management system (CMS) developed by PmWiki. Its original author was Patrick R. Michaud and initially released on January 2002. For this post, we are going to create a cool wiki out of it. I also provided the download links for the needed files below.

Requirements:

• xampp-windows-x64-5.6.40-1-VC11-installer [download here]
• pmwiki-2.3.15 [download here]

Assuming that you downloaded the files above, continue to the tutorials below.

Table of Contents

• XAMPP Installation
• Opening XAMPP and running Apache and MySQL
• Copying and pasting PmWiki installation folder inside htdocs
• Installing PmWiki website using localhost via web browser
• Opening PmWiki website homepage
• Accessing PmWiki website admin page
• Accessing config.php file inside PmWiki root folder in htdocs
• Editing config.php file

Here are the steps on how to install PmWiki website using XAMPP in Windows pc

XAMPP Installation

1. Open XAMPP file. If a Warning about User Account Control (UAC) appears, just click OK to proceed.

2. In the Setup - XAMPP, click NEXT.

3. In the Select Components, leave it as it is and press NEXT to proceed.

4. In the Installation folder, do not change C:\xampp, just leave it again and press NEXT to proceed.

5. In the Bitnami for XAMPP, uncheck the "Learn more about..." and press NEXT to proceed.

6. We are now ready to install XAMPP. Press NEXT to start.

7. Wait for the installation to finish.

8. When done, click Finish to exit the installer.

Opening XAMPP and running Apache and MySQL

1. To open XAMPP, you can go to Start and search for xampp or go to This PC > C drive > xampp and click on xampp-control.exe. Inside XAMPP Control Panel, click the start buttons for Apache and MySQL.

2. Apache and MySQL are both running now, if you see two stop buttons.

3. If a Windows Security Alert appears, click Allow access.

Copying and pasting PmWiki installation folder inside htdocs

1. Extract the PmWiki zip file that you downloaded earlier. Rename the extracted folder as "pmwiki". Copy pmwiki folder and go to This PC.

2. Inside This PC, open your C drive.

3. Inside C, open xampp folder.

4. Then, open htdocs folder.

5. Paste your pmwiki folder inside htdocs.

Installing PmWiki website using localhost via web browser

1. PmWiki installation does not require a database, so, we are now ready to install it. Open your web browser and go to 127.0.0.1/pmwiki/pmwiki.php and press ENTER.

2. Done! You have instantly installed and created a website out of PmWiki CMS.

Opening PmWiki website homepage

1. To open your PmWiki website homepage, just go to 127.0.0.1/pmwiki/pmwiki.php or localhost/pmwiki/pmwiki.php.

Accessing PmWiki website admin page

1. To access your PmWiki admin login page, just go to 127.0.0.1/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=SiteAdmin.SiteAdmin.

2. Enter your site admin password which is "adminpasswordhere". Don't worry, I will also show you how to change your password later on the tutorial below. Press OK to proceed.

3. And you have successfully accessed your PmWiki website administration page.

Accessing config.php file inside PmWiki root folder in htdocs

1. By default, a PmWiki installer do not have a config.php file inside .\pmwiki\local but for your convenience, I already created one and included it inside the PmWiki zip file that you downloaded. To access your config.php file, just go to This PC > C drive > xampp > htdocs > pmwiki > local > and inside your local folder, you will see there your config.php file. Continue to the next tutorial below.

Editing config.php file

1. To edit your config.php file, just right-click on it and open with Notepad or Notepad++ if you have. Your config.php file contains your WikiTitle, Admin password and Upload password. (See image below). You can change the value of these 3 if you want, specially your Administrator account password which is currently set to 'adminpasswordhere'. When done editing, just save your config.php file by going to File > Save. There is also a default copy of config.php file inside the .\pmwiki\docs folder which is named "sample-config.php". You can also edit this file and rename it as config.php and paste it inside the local folder when done editing. Remember: To enable a setting inside your config.php file, all you need to do is remove the # in the beginning of the line of code.

That is how easy to create a website out of PmWiki. If you have question to ask, do not hesitate to leave a comment below. Thank you!