Installing WordPress Locally on a Windows Desktop or Laptop

It is possible to practice using or teach how to use a WordPress blog without being connected to the Internet. This is done by installing WordPress locally on a desktop or laptop computer. Although I've done this only with computers running Windows Vista so far, it is possible to do this on computers running OS X and Linux as well.

Here are the steps to follow when installing WordPress on Vista. A more detailed discussion can be found at the following link: Installing WordPress on local Windows using Xampp (http://helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/installing-wordpress-on-local-windows-using-xampp/).

(1) Download and install Xampp from the site XAMPP for Windows (http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html). Go to the post Downloading and Installing XAMPP for Windows for a detailed tutorial on how to do this..

(2) Download the latest stable version of WordPress from wordpress.org and install it on your computer. For tutorials, see the posts Downloading and Installing WordPress on Windows and Complete Local WordPress Installation on Windows.

NOTE: Because there are a lot of little steps, the process described in the tutorials linked to this post may appear to be complicated. Actually, it's quite easy and takes only a few minutes to complete. I just did a complete reinstall of both XAMPP and WordPress on my desktop and the whole process took less than 5 minutes.

The administrator of a WordPress blog uses something called a "Dashboard" to manage the blog. You access the Dashboard on a local version of WordPress in exactly the same way you do an Internet-based version, the only difference being the address you enter into your browser:

(a) Launch the XAMPP Control Panel and start Apache and MySQL,

(b) open a browser and enter http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin in the address bar and

(c) enter the Username and Password of the administrator in the login screen.

To view the content of the blog itself, as a normal user, you access it in exactly the same way you would if it were a web-based instead of a local installation, the only difference being the address you enter into your browser:

(a) Launch the XAMPP Control Panel and start Apache and MySQL and

(b) open a browser and enter http://localhost/wordpress in the address bar.

Instructions for launching XAMPP, etc. are contained in the above-mentioned tutorials.