apache_2.2.8-win32-x86-openssl-0.9.8g.msi

1. How to Set Up Apache with the Installation Wizard on Vista

   Follow the installer's instructions on setting up the web server (that is, read the information displayed in each dialog box, and click the necessary buttons). For the most part, installing is pretty straightforward. Don't worry, the not-so-straightforward portions are described in detail in the next few paragraphs.
   When you come to the "Server Information" window, enter "localhost" (without the quotation marks) in both the "Network Domain" and "Server Name" fields. In the "Administrator's Email Address" field, enter whatever email address you wish. In theory, this information is used by the installer to create a default configuration file for your web server. (In practice, the installer seems to ignore whatever you enter here. But you should still enter what I said earlier, just in case the installer has been fixed in the version you use.) You can easily modify this in your configuration file later if you change your mind.
   Leave the default option "for All Users, on Port 80, as a Service" as it is. When you're satisfied with what you've entered, click the "Next" button.
   When you're presented with the "Setup Type" screen, leave the default setting of "Typical" and click "Next". You'll be asked for the location to install Apache. Leave it at the default of "c:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache 2.2\". I will assume that you've installed to this location in the rest of this article. Click "Next".
   When the "Ready to Install the Program" window appears, click the "Install" button. The setup utility will proceed to set up Apache on your machine.
   When the installer is done, click the "Finish" button to dismiss it. There should be no error messages or error windows. (If you get any errors, it probably means that you did not rigorously follow my procedure in this guide. To solve it, uninstall everything and start again.)
   Do not close the administrator command prompt window that you opened earlier. You'll need it again later.

2. How to Start and Stop the Apache Service: Introducing The Apache Monitor

   Once you've finished all the above steps, you should be able to see a new icon in your system tray. This is the Apache Monitor. If you're not sure which icon in your tray is the Apache monitor, move your mouse button over each icon and wait for the tooltip to appear. The Apache Monitor should give a tooltip of "Running all Apache services" after you have successfully installed the program.
   Doubleclick the icon to open up the Apache Monitor program. A window, "Apache Service Monitor", will appear. This program allows you to start and stop the Apache web server on your machine. By default, the setup utility starts the Apache web server. If you want to the server to run only when you actually test your website on your computer, you can use the monitor to stop and start it.
   At the risk of stating the obvious, clicking the "Stop" button will stop the Apache web server service. The "Start" button starts it. If you make a change to the Apache configuration file (see later in this article), you will need to hit the "Restart" button to reload the Apache service, so that the server will reread the configuration file. When you're through playing with the buttons, click the "OK" button (not the "Exit" button) to return the Monitor to the system tray. If you have accidentally hit the "Exit" button and found that you've killed the Monitor, you can restart it again from your Start menu. (Type "monitor apache servers" in the Start menu search field.)
   If a button is disabled, it means that it's not relevant to the current situation. For example, if the Apache web server is already running, the "Start" button will be disabled. You can pretty much ignore the other buttons.

3. Interim Test

   At this point, the Apache web server is fully functional. To make sure that the server is properly set up, start up your web browser, and go to the address "http://localhost/". If you see a simple web page with the words "It works!", it means that the server installation was successful.

How to Make the Apache Web Server Convenient to Use on Windows Vista

Even though Apache may now be properly installed on your system and running smoothly, in its current state, it is not convenient to configure or even copy your website files to it.
The problem is that the current Windows version of Apache 2.2 installer (version 2.2.10 at the time I wrote this article) was not really written with Vista in mind. As such, things that you frequently need to modify, like the configuration file and the web server files, are located in the "c:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache 2.2\" folder. In Vista, the "Program Files" folder and its descendants are protected folders that programs can access only if they are run with administrator privileges (like we did earlier when we ran the Command Prompt as administrator).
If we leave things in this state, the only way that you can configure Apache is to run your editor as administrator. And when you need to copy your website's files to your local server, you'll need to do it when running as administrator. All in all, this makes things very troublesome for the web developer.
As such, until the Apache developers update the server to directly support Vista installations, you may want to do the following to make your life easier.

1. Create a Folder for Your Apache Configuration and Website Files

   Create a new folder, either on your Desktop or in your Documents folder, called "apache". Actually, it doesn't matter where you create the folder or what you call it. However, for the purpose of this tutorial, I will assume that you created a new empty folder called "apache" on your desktop. That is, if your username is "heng", you will have a new folder called "c:\Users\heng\Desktop\apache".
   (To create a folder, right click your desktop and select "New" from the menu that appears, followed by the "Folder" item in the submenu. Rename the "New Folder" to "apache".)
   Open the folder by doubleclicking it. It should be empty. Leave the window open.

2. Copy the Conf and Htdocs Folders to Your Private Apache Folder

   Click the start menu followed by the "Computer" item in the menu. This will open an Explorer window. Navigate to "c:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache 2.2\" in the usual way you go to different folders on your computer. (That is, doubleclick the C: drive, then the "Program Files" folder, then the "Apache Software Foundation" folder, and finally the "Apache 2.2" folder).
   Look for the folder "conf". Right click the folder and select "Copy" from the menu that appears. Switch to the "apache" window that you opened in the previous step. Right click in the empty space in that window and select "Paste". Do the same for the "htdocs" folders as well. Do NOT drag and drop them. Copy and paste the folders or you will end up with folders and files having the wrong permissions.
   By the end of this step, you should have two copies of the "conf" and "htdocs" folders: one in your "Apache 2.2" Program Files folder, and one in your Desktop "apache" folder.

3. Delete the Original Conf and Htdocs Folders

   Open the Apache Monitor by doubleclicking on its system tray icon. Click the "Stop" button to stop the service. When the service has stopped, you will see a message in the lower window "The Apache2.2 service has stopped". Click the "OK" button.
   Now switch back to the first window, the one pointing to "c:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache 2.2\". Right click the "conf" folder and click "Delete" from the menu that appears. You will be asked to confirm in triplicate (I'm not kidding). That is, a dialog box will appear asking if you are sure that you want to move the folder to the Recycle Bin. Click "Yes" to the prompt that appears. Another dialog box, with the title "Destination Folder Access Denied" will open, asking you to confirm the operation. Click "Continue". Yet another window, the "User Account Control" will appear, again asking for your permission to continue. Click "Continue" again.
   Repeat the procedure with the "htdocs" folder.

4. Create a Symbolic Link to Your Private Apache Folder

   Switch to the Administrator Command Prompt that you opened earlier.
   Type the following line into the "Administrator Command Prompt" window and hit the ENTER key.
   
   cd "c:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache 2.2\"
   Be sure to type the opening and closing quotation marks (yes, the quotes are needed). The command will bring you into the Apache folder. To make sure you're in the right folder, type "dir" (without the quotes) followed by the ENTER key. You should see the same files and folders that you saw earlier in the Explorer window, albeit arranged in a different order.
   Type the following command, followed by the ENTER key. Notice that the command line includes characters like the quotation marks and the percent sign. All the characters are required.
   
   mklink /D conf "%USERPROFILE%\desktop\apache\conf"
   The shell (command prompt) will print reassuring words to the effect that a symbolic link has been created and where the link points to.
   If you make a mistake creating the symbolic link, so that it points to the wrong location, delete it by typing "rd conf" followed by the ENTER key. Then try again. Note that my above command line assumes that you have created a folder called "apache" on your desktop, as I mentioned earlier.
   Finally, create a symbolic link for the htdocs directory.
   
   mklink /D htdocs "%USERPROFILE%\desktop\apache\htdocs"
   To make sure that all is well, doubleclick the Apache Monitor icon again, and start the web server service. (That is, click the "Start" button in the Monitor window.) Then open your web browser and surf to "http://localhost/". The "It Works!" web page should appear. If "It Works" does not appear, and you get a directory listing of some other directory, it means that your "htdocs" link is pointing to the wrong location. Delete the existing link with "rd htdocs" in the Administrator Command Prompt and try again.

Using Apache on Vista: Basic Getting Started Guide

• How to Publish Your Web Pages to Your Own Apache Server

  The "htdocs" subfolder that we created in your desktop "apache" folder is where all your web pages live. Since the folder directly resides on your computer, you don't have to do anything special to "publish" your website files. That is, you don't have to upload your pages using FTP or anything like that. (You can't anyway, unless you set up an FTP server in addition to your web server.) All you need to do is to copy your files to the "htdocs" folder and it will be displayed by Apache when there is a request for them.

• How to Change the Server Name and Administrator's Email Address

  Remember how I mentioned earlier that if you change your mind about the email address you enter into the Apache setup utility or the domain name, you can change it later? For those who actually need to change these settings, you will have to modify the Apache configuration file, "httpd.conf". This file, if you have followed my procedure above, lives in the "conf" subfolder in your desktop "apache" folder.
  To edit it, either load it in Notepad directly, or invoke the Start menu, type "apache" into the "Start Search" box, and select the "Edit the Apache httpd.conf Configuration File" item that appears. This will invoke Notepad to load httpd.conf. Note that you should always use an ASCII or programmer's text editor to edit this file. Notepad is fine. But never use a word processor or office program. For example, any program that allows you to underline text, make things bold or italicize words should NOT be used.
  To change the server name, look for the following line and replace "localhost" with the domain you want.
  
  ServerName localhost:80
  If the "ServerName" entry is preceded by a hash ("#") sign, and there are no other "ServerName" entries in the file, remove the hash before you modify the line.
  To change the Administrator's email address, look for a line like the following (that is, starting with "ServerAdmin") and replace the email portion with whatever you want:
  
  ServerAdmin admin@localhost
  Once you're done with your changes, save the file by selecting the "Save" item from the "File" menu. Then invoke the Apache monitor and click the "Restart" button to restart the server.
  In general, if your purpose for setting up Apache is to test your site on your own machine before you upload it "live" onto a real web host, you don't have to change anything. For most people, the default settings are fine for such purposes.
  (As a side note, if you're thinking of buying your own domain name and attaching it to your web server, please note that your server, as currently set up, is not suitable for live deployment on the Internet. Live deployment requires additional security measures, not dealt with here. You will also need to have your domain point to your machine's real IP address in a name server.)

• How to Configure Apache to Accept Server Side Includes

  If you want the web server to handle Server Side Includes (SSI), search for the text "server-side includes" in the configuration file. (If you skipped the previous item, and thus don't know how to load the Apache configuration file, please return to that section to find out how it is done.)
  The text you found should be in a section of lines all preceded by the hash ("#") sign. Any line that has a hash mark at the start is regarded as a comment by the Apache web server. Comments are ignored by the server, and are meant as explanatory text for human beings to read. They don't do anything except give information to human readers.
  Add the following lines immediately after that block of comments. The lines should be added ABOVE the closing </IfModule> line.
  

  AddType text/html .shtml
  AddOutputFilter INCLUDES .shtml
  

  If you look carefully at the commented text, you will notice that the configuration settings I provided above are mirrored exactly in the last two lines of the commented block. Instead of adding my lines, you can also uncomment those two lines in your file by removing the initial hash ("#") prefix before each line.
  When you do this, your Apache server will now be able to recognize files ending with the ".shtml" extension, and parse them for SSI directives.
  For those who want "index.shtml" to be your default start page for your directories, ie, if you want Apache to load "index.shtml" when you type "http://localhost" or "http://localhost/directory/", you will need to search for the following line in your "httpd.conf" file:
  
  DirectoryIndex index.html
  Replace that line with:
  
  DirectoryIndex index.shtml index.html
  This setting causes Apache to first look for an "index.shtml" file in the directory and use that as the default page for that directory. If this file cannot be found, it will look for the next file specified. That is, Apache goes through the list of filenames in the order given.
  When you're through with the configuration, save the file by clicking "Save" from the "File" menu. Again, you will have to invoke the Apache Monitor and click the "Restart" button to restart the server. This is needed because Apache only checks the configuration file once, when it loads. Any time you change the configuration file, you need to click the "Restart" button to make sure that Apache recognizes your new configuration.

How to Add PHP and Perl to Your Apache Web Server

Out of the box, Apache does not contain support for PHP or Perl. If you want your server to support PHP scripts, please see the article How to Install and Configure PHP 5 to Run with Apache on Windows.
I also have an older article How to Add Perl CGI Script Support to Your Apache Server on Windows that deals with adding Perl to Apache. That article was written for Apache 1.x, and is thus probably not very relevant to the 2.x series. I'll eventually get round to updating the article for Apache 2 on Vista, but in the meantime, if you're really stuck, it may provide some tips on what to look for when installing Perl.
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Conclusion

Congratulations! You have now not only installed Apache 2.2.x successfully on Windows Vista, you've also configured it and made the overall use of Apache very much easier so that each time you modify its settings or update your website, you don't have to face multiple UAC prompts from Vista. And you didn't even have to permanently disable UAC (which, in spite of its detractors, has its uses) to accomplish it




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