Installing Apache 1.x.x on Windows 9x

by Nathan Wallace (Sep 29, 1999)

Introduction

Installing Apache on Windows is really trivial. If you can't work it out yourself then you probably shouldn't be doing it.

I wrote these instructions because I couldn't be bothered trying to find the downloadable install files again the next time and to make my instruction sets more complete.

Getting Apache

  1. Make a directory, c:\tmp

  2. First we must download the Apache distribution. You can use the latest distribution, or follow these instructions letter for letter with Apache 1.3.9.

  3. Save the Apache binary into the directory c:\tmp

Installing Apache

  1. Open Windows Explorer from your Start Menu.

  2. Go to the c:\tmp folder.

  3. Double click on the apache binary file, apache_1_3_9_win32.exe or equivalent.

  4. Hit Next to start the installation.

  5. Accept the license agreement (as usual, don't bother actually reading it).

  6. Read the warning carefully. If you are setting up a production server, stop now and use Apache for Linux instead. If your boss is making you use windows I suggest you show them this warning.

  7. I accepted the default installation directory, C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache.

  8. Choose custom installation just so we can see what it's actually installing.

  9. I installed everything since I've got disk space to burn. Hit Next.

  10. Accept a new Apache Folder being created, unless you have an extremely sophisticated start menu system setup already...

  11. Pray that windows doesn't blow up while you are in the middle of installing the files.

  12. Don't bother reading the readme since it mostly contains information that you needed to know before installing anyway...

Configuring Apache

  1. On some computers you may need to specify the server name in the Apache configuration file. In many cases Apache can determine the name automatically.

  2. When I need to specify the name I just call the machine localhost, changing the ServerName directive on line 232 of the httpd.conf file. You will also need to uncomment this line by removing the hash at the start. 
        ServerName localhost

Checking it works

  1. To start Apache, go to Start Menu -> Programs -> Apache Web Server.

  2. Choose Start Apache.

  3. You can check that everything worked by just opening a browser and going to the URL http://localhost.

  4. If you see a page that says "It Worked!", then obviously, it worked.

  5. If everything is stuffed then I suggest you try the standard Microsoft techniques, reboot, and then re-install Apache, and then re-install everything. If it still doesn't work, something really weird is going on and I don't know enough to help you any more...