Getting started with PHP on Windows

I'm getting started with a side project that will be developed using PHP and I'm looking for guidance on getting my Windows mach开发者_开发技巧ine up and running and ready for development (as quickly as possible). Being that PHP development is more geared towards Linux users/developers (which I am not), I'm trying to figure out how to get all the pieces in place to get a 'WAMP' stack operational locally on my Windows machine.

Any good tutorials/quick start guides out there and if not, does someone have all the steps that they could provide me with here?

Install Apache Friends XAMPP.

PHP on Windows:

• Install Xampp because it is really easy to install.
• Use version control system like for example git to store your code.
• Use an IDE like netbeans/eclipse/aptana for faster PHP development(autocomplete, code formatting, PHPdoc, etc).
• Learn a PHP framework like for example codeigniter to ease your development. The video/screencast to create a blog in 20 minutes will learn you how to use it.
• Practice TDD to test your code, which will result in more stable code-base.

Good luck coding!

Learning Linux/Ubuntu:

As a sidenote when installing ubuntu which is really a straight forward process you will see that using linux isn't that difficult as you think(It used to be difficult compiling source manually etc). when you install a dual boot and play with every day. I guarantee you that in no time you will really love linux like I do. I really think linux is the best option for coding. Also redis main creator shares this opinion with me.

Probably the quickest way to get a PHP server up and running on Windows is WAMP 2.0. Wamp Site. I use it on my Vista machine. Download it, run the 'exe', and start coding. It is only 16 MB but it is powerful and very simple to use.

Why not go the official Microsoft route: Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 installs both PHP (to run in IIS) and MySQL.

My two cents. I use Netbeans for my windows PHP development. Here is a quick start guide

As previously mentioned, XAMPP is probably the easiest and fastest way to get started with PHP. Search installing xampp on youtube, they got a good video on how to install it to your system.