Installing WordPress on Windows 7

No, I didn’t think it was possible either.

If you are reading this then you are probably well aware of what WordPress is, and unless you’ve been living in a cave for the last 10 years or so then you will almost certainly know what Windows is, more specifically, its latest incarnation, Windows 7.

If you know a bit about WordPress, you know that WordPress runs using PHP and MySQL, normally found running on an Apache Server. Simply put, it wasn’t initially built for the Windows platform.

Wanting to set up a test WordPress environment on my box, I did some searching around to see how I could install WordPress directly onto my Windows box for testing theme designs, and I found quite possibly one of the most useful tools I think Microsoft have ever developed. Introducing Microsoft Web Platform, but more specifically, WordPress on the Microsoft Web Platform.

Takes about 5-10 minutes to install, but if you are familiar with installing WordPress and its environment then the install and setup should be relatively straightforward. Not only that, but upgrades, plugins and theme installations appear to work seamlessly without having to setup FTP usernames and passwords. Bonus!

I haven’t tested this on a Windows Server platform, but I was mighty impressed with it running as localhost on a Windows 7 box, provides an ideal testing environment!