Getting started with Cake PHP Installation on Wamp Server

To begin the project the 1st thing that I wanted to do was set up the testing and development environment on my Laptop in the house!!

Testing Environment and Development Environment?

I use Windows 8 in the house so for my Testing and Development environment I will be using WAMP which is Apache, MYSQL and PHP for Windows!

Apache is the server that hosts the sites , MYSQL is for creating the database and PHP is the scripting language that puts it all together

Once you have downloaded it is a case of installing the programme and specifying where you want your directories to go the WWW folder is where you put all of your pages etc to get tested.

Problems with installing on Windows 8

After installing and then what you will do is run the application from the bottom of your screen normally the icon is green but for some reason mines was an orange color?

I then found this tutorial from here http://graftalks.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/how-to-use-wamp-server-on-windows-8.html

which shows how to solve this :

The problem I encountered was that WAMP’s icon wasn’t becoming green. Rather than that, it got stuck as an orange icon.

WAMP Server’s Orange Icon  not turning Green

When I was using Windows 7,  I found out that this only happens whenever some other service or software is using our computer’s Port 80 (HTTP port) and mostly it was Skype because of which I wasn’t able to run WAMP properly.

On Windows 8 however, I wasn’t able to find any solution to this problem. But then I came across a blog where someone had posted a solution for this, which I thought I should share with others as well. Here it is.

1. Left click on the WAMP Server system tray icon, then goto Apache > Service > Test port 80.

Checking which service is using Port 80

When you’ll click on the Test Port 80 option, you’ll see a cmd line screen that will display the name of the service that is using Port 80.  See the screenshot below:

Screen displaying information about Port 80

By doing this, you’ll get to know which service (if any) is using Port 80. In Windows 8, by default, IIS 8 Server uses this port. When we install Windows 8, IIS 8 is also installed with it and unfortunately it automatically runs at the startup. So the only way we can make WAMP server run properly, is by Disabling this IIS 8 server.

How to Disable IIS 8 Server

1. Open the Control Panel by Right clicking on the bottom-left corner of the screen and select the option of Control Panel. Refer to the screenshot below:

Open Control Panel (Windows 8)

2. In the Control Panel window, search for administrative tools and click on the resultant Administrative Tools icon.

Search for Administrative Tools in Control Panel

3. After the Administrative Tools window is opened, double-click on Services. Another way to access the Services window is by going to Start -> Run -> and type services.msc in the run window. Click OK and the same Services window will open.

Administrative Tools Window

4. After the Services window is opened, scroll at the bottom and double-click on World Wide Web Publishing Service.

Services Window

How to view WWWPublishing Service in Services window

This step is optional and only for those who can’t find World Wide Web Publishing Service in the Services window. Jump to point number 5 if you’re not one of them. Anyway, here’s how to solve this problem.

4a.  Open Control Panel (as explained above).

4b. In the Control Panel window, click on Programs (refer to the screenshot below)

Control Panel window

4c. In the Programs window, click on Turn Windows features on or off under thePrograms and Features heading. (refer to the screenshot below)

Programs window

4d. When you’ll click on the Turn on Windows features on or off button, a small window will pop-up. It’ll contain a list of Windows Features. Scroll down until you find Internet Information Services and click on the plus (+) icon to the left of it to expand it. On expanding the menu, you’ll see that one of the options will be World Wide Web Services. Just click on the checkbox on the left of it and press OK button. Windows will load for sometime and it may ask you to reboot. Reboot it if you like. And you’re done.

Windows Features window

Back to our main topic

5. In the World Wide Web Publishing Service window, locate the Startup type dropdown menu and select the option that says Disable and click OK.

World Wide Web Publishing Service Window

After Disabling the IIS 8 Server, restart your computer and then open WAMP server again. Hopefully it’ll run properly. To make sure that no service is using Port 80, re-run the Test Port 80 window (as described above) and you’ll see a screen similar to the one below:

Test Port 80 window that shows that the port is free now

How to run Localhost on Windows 8

After Port 80 is free, I tried to run localhost in my browser but I continuously received error messages as shown below:

Error Message I received even when the WAMP icon was Green

After getting the message that is shown above, I uninstalled Skype and reinstalled the latest version of WAMP Server but still I got the following message in my browser.

Forbidden error after uninstalling Skype

After spending hours and hours on trying to solve this problem, what I found out in the end was very frustrating for me. The only thing I had to do was Left-click on the WAMP Server system tray icon and click on Put Online option (as shown below).

Select Put Online option from WAMP Server tray icon

After that, just go to your browser of choice, and type localhost in the address bar and Voila!! It works.

Finally, localhost works!!!!

But there’s still one problem, even though your localhost has started working, it is possible that you won’t be allowed to access phpmyadmin. To get around this problem, just type127.0.0.1/phpmyadmin in your browser’s address bar and hopefully it’ll work.
   Anyway, that’s it for today. Hope you enjoyed this post. Please comment if you have any questions/suggestions.