How to install Silverstripe CMS in XAMPP Windows 11

Silverstripe CMS is another content management system for creating liver or development websites for free. It was developed by Silverstripe. Its current stable release during the creation of this tutorial is version 4.7.3 which was released on March 5, 2021. For this post, we are going to create a simple website out of it. Download the necessary files below to be able to start.

Requirements:

• xampp-win32-7.3.0-0-VC15-installer [download here]
• Composer-Setup [download here]

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

Table of Contents

• XAMPP Installation
• Composer Installation
• Opening XAMPP and running Apache and MySQL
• Creating Database needed for Silverstripe installation via Localhost
• Downloading Silverstripe using Composer via Powershell
• Installing Silverstripe website using localhost via web browser
• Opening Silverstripe website homepage
• Accessing Silverstripe website admin page
• Creating Silverstripe New Admin User Account

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

XAMPP Installation

1. Open the XAMPP file that you downloaded. If a Question appears regarding antivirus running press Yes to continue.

2. In the Warning regarding User Account Control (UAC) press OK to proceed.

3. Under Setup - XAMPP press NEXT to continue.

4. In the Select Components, just press NEXT to proceed.

5. Under Installation folder, do not change it. Just press NEXT to proceed.

6. In the Bitnami for XAMPP press NEXT to proceed.

7. We are now ready to install XAMPP. Press NEXT to proceed.

8. Wait for the installation to finish.

9. When done, press Finish to exit the installer.

Composer Installation

1. We are now going to install Composer. We will be using it to download Silverstripe CMS later. Open the Composer executable file that you downloaded. In the Select Setup Install Mode, select "Install for all users (recommended)".

2. In the Installation Options just press NEXT to proceed.

3. In the Settings Check, browse for the php.exe which is located in This PC > C drive > xampp > php folder. Also check the "Add this PHP to your path" option. When done, press NEXT to proceed.

4. Leave Proxy Settings as it is and press NEXT to proceed.

5. We are now Ready to install Composer, press Install to start the installation.

6. Wait for "Running the Composer installer script..." to finish.

7. Under Information, just press NEXT to proceed.

8. You have successfully installed Composer, press Finish to exit the installer.

Opening XAMPP and running Apache and MySQL

1. We need to run XAMPP now. To start, go to This PC > C drive > xampp and press open xampp-control.exe.

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

3. Apache and MySQL both have the Stop buttons now, meaning, they are now running.

4. If a Windows Security Alert appears, just press Allow access to proceed.

Creating Database needed for Silverstripe installation via Localhost

1. We are now going to create the database needed for our Silverstripe installation. Make sure you already ran XAMPP. To Start, open your web browser and go to 127.0.0.1 and press ENTER.

2. Inside, click phpMyAdmin.

3. Inside phpMyAdmin, click Databases.

4. In the Create database, name your database as silverstripe_db and next to it set charset to utf8mb4_unicode_ci. Press Create to proceed.

5. In the Create table, name your table as silverstripe_table and set number of columns to 4. Press Go to proceed.

6. Next, set structure or field name to silverstripe. Select INT for Type.

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

8. Save your work.

Downloading Silverstripe using Composer via Powershell

1. We are now going to download Silverstripe CMS installer using Composer via Powershell. Open your Powershell.

2. Inside Powershell, type composer create-project silverstripe/install "C:\xampp\htdocs\silverstripe" and press ENTER.

3. Wait for the downloading and installing as well as locking files to be finished.

4. Under 3 "Do you trust" questions regarding composer/installers, silverstripe/recipe-plugin, and silverstripe/vendor-plugin, just press letter "y" and press ENTER to allow all installations and code execution.

5. Again, wait for the installation to finish.

6. When done, you will see the same image as below.

Installing Silverstripe website using localhost via web browser

1. We are now ready to install Silverstripe. Again, open your web browser and go to 127.0.0.1/silverstripe and press ENTER.

2. If you a an error saying "Silverstripe Framework requires a 'database' key in DB::getConfig(). Did you forget to set SS_DATABASE_NAME or SS_DATABASE_CHOOSE_NAME in your environment?", then, we need to fix this first before we can continue with the installation.

3. To fix the error, go to This PC > C drive > xampp > htdocs > silverstripe folder > then, find .env.example file. Right-click the file and open or edit with Notepad.

4. Inside .env.example file, do the following: SS_DATABAE_CLASS="MySQLDatabase" , SS_DATABASE_SERVER="localhost" , SS_DATABASE_USERNAME="root" , SS_DATABASE_PASSWORD="" (no password) , SS_DATABASE_NAME="silverstripe_db". I personally added the # SITE ADMIN section and below it type the following: SS_DEFAULT_ADMIN_USERNAME = "admin" and SS_DEFAULT_ADMIN_PASSWORD = "yourdadminpassword" (do not forget your password). When done, click File > Save.

5. After saving env.example file, rename it as .env file to make it functional for our Silverstripe installation. When done, go back to your installation page and Refresh or Reload it.

6. After reloading your installation page, your Silverstripe website is now installed instantly. 

Opening Silverstripe website homepage

1. To open Silverstripe website homepage, just go to 127.0.0.1/silverstripe or localhost/silverstripe. I already edited the website below that is why you will see that the Site Name is already 123HOW.XYZ and the tag line is also changed.

Accessing Silverstripe website admin page

1. To access Silverstripe admin. Just click "the CMS" link (see image below), or go to 127.0.0.1/silverstripe/admin or 127.0.0.1/silverstripe/Security/login and press ENTER.

2. Inside your Silverstripe website admin login page, type your Email which is admin (for now) and your password that you set earlier inside the .env file. Press Login to proceed.

3. Below is the example of Silverstripe website administration page. Continue to the last tutorial below.

Creating Silverstripe New Admin User Account

1. We are now going to create our official Administrator account. Inside your admin account, click Security > Add Member. Under New Member, do the following: First Name - Administrator. Surname - User. Email - enter a valid email address (you will also use this for future logins). Password/Confirm password - your desired admin password (do not forget it). Groups - make sure to set it as "Administrators". When done, click Create to finish creating your new admin account. Done!

Making a website out of Silverstripe is a little bit tricky for me. But, as long as we are able to create a website in the end, it doesn't matter. Thank you for reading this tutorial guys. If you have a question, you can leave a comment below. Cheers!