Installation and Setup

Welcome to Wampoon! This guide will help you get started with the Wampoon local development stack.

What is Wampoon?

Wampoon is a complete, fully portable local development environment for Windows that bundles Apache, MariaDB, and PHP (along with essential tools like phpMyAdmin, Composer, and Xdebug) into a single, easy-to-use package. It’s designed to get you up and running with web development quickly, without complex configuration or system-wide installations.

Installing Wampoon

Depending on your preference, Wampoon can be installed in two different ways, either using the Wampoon Installer or the Wampoon Portable Bundle.

System Requirements

• Operating System: Windows 10 or Windows 11
• Disk Space: At least 800MB of free space
• Network: Ports 80, 443, and 3306 should be available (not used by other applications)

1. Using the Wampoon Installer

This option provides a guided setup process.

1. Download the latest installer archive at:

Wampoon-Installer.zip

2. Extract the contents of the ZIP file to a local folder.
3. Run Wampoon-Installer.exe to launch the installer and follow the instructions.

phpMyAdmin Advanced Features

The installer does not enable phpMyAdmin’s advanced features (such as bookmarks, PDF generation, designer mode, and relation tracking). These features require additional database setup and can be enabled manually by following the phpMyAdmin configuration guide. Most users won’t need these features for basic database management.

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2. Using the Wampoon Portable Bundle (Recommended)

This is the recommended option for most users as it was tested and works out of the box on all Windows versions.

This option gives you a preconfigured, portable Wampoon environment that runs without installation.

Install instructions:

1. Download the portable archive from the Wampoon GitHub Releases page at:

Wampoon-portable-1.0.0.zip

2. Extract the contents of the ZIP file to a local folder.
3. That’s it! You can now run WampoonControl.exe to start Wampoon’s control panel.

The portable bundle comes preconfigured with the following components:

• Apache HTTP Server — 2.4.65.0
• MariaDB Server — 11.8.3.0
• PHP Runtime — 8.4.10.0
• phpMyAdmin — 5.2.2.0
• wampoon-dashboard — latest
• Wampoon Control Panel — latest
• Xdebug — 3.4.5.0
• Composer — 2.8.10.0
• Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime — 14.0.0.0
• browscap — latest

Component Versions

Component versions listed above are current as of the latest release. Check the GitHub Releases page for the most up-to-date version information.

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Verifying Your Installation

After installing Wampoon, follow these steps to verify everything is working correctly:

1. Launch the Control Panel:

   • Run WampoonControl.exe from your Wampoon installation folder
   • The control panel window should open without errors

2. Start Services:

   • In the control panel, start Apache and MariaDB services
   • Both services should show a “Running” status (usually indicated by a green icon)

3. Test Apache:

   • Open your web browser and navigate to http://localhost
   • You should see the Wampoon Dashboard welcome page

4. Access the Wampoon Dashboard:

   • The dashboard provides quick links to phpMyAdmin and PHP info
   • Navigate to http://localhost to access the dashboard
   • Click on the phpMyAdmin link to verify database access
   • Click on the PHP Info link to verify PHP configuration and extensions

If all these steps complete successfully, your Wampoon installation is ready to use!

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Next Steps

Wampoon is now ready to use! Check out the Usage Guide to learn how to create projects, configure PHP, manage databases, and set up virtual hosts.

If you encounter any issues, see the Troubleshooting Guide for help.