Wow...... thats a long title for a blog article isn't it.... We are going to talk about setting up a development environment on a local pc or Laptop, and that development environment will include a web server (Apache) a fully working PHP, that is a scripting language and a fully working MySQL Server all running locally on your own computer.....
Why do you need this, welll put very simply to test your pages that use php and mysql databases on a local machine before you put them up to the live web server... Thats why...
Your first job is to down load and install Apache..... sounds simple, well yes and know........

You need firstly to select the right version of Apache to download, you need (if you are running windows on your computer) the version that is for windows...
Firstly go to ; http://httpd.apache.org/
here you will see lots of writing, but look carefuklly and you will see sections for diffrent versions of apache, and in each section there is a little link called download. We went for Apache 2.0.63
To be precise we went for apache_2.0.63-win32-x86-openssl-0.9.7m.msi
This is a windows installer package you download it to your computer and once it is downloaded you will find it My Documents/Downloads ... look here we are talking about Microsoft Windows XP Home!!!
Once it is dowloaded you double click on it with the left mouse button, to start the installation, you will be asked a few questions along the way and in this blog we give you the answers to these questions...... right here.

Remember that Apache can not be installed on just any windows operating system, and to be precise any windows operating system..... to cut a long conversation short you need Windows XP Service Pack 2, or Service Pack 3 right, so get that installed first, if you have XP with no service pack or with only service pack 1, thats no good...

It is worth doing a little reading before you carry on, and we are going to give you a link to that bit of reading, essentially you have to answer a few questions when you install apache, the questions are:

1. What is your Network Domain,
2.What is your Server Name,
3. Administrators E ,mail address,
4. For whome to install Apache, and will it run as a service
5. Installation type and
6. Where to install

The answers to these are:
1. mydomain.net
2. server.mydomain.net
3.me@mydomain.net
4. You want all users on port 80 as a service, this means that the apache server will listen to port 80, it also means that every user has access to it and Apache will start up itself automatically once you have booted your computer, thats exactly what you want.
5.select installation type Typical
6. Just choose the default path which will be C:\Program Files\Apache Group

So heres the link to the page I sugest you read carefully notes on apache2.0 Installation

How can you check that Apache is working correctly, well we tell you here, and then if you want to read on about how to get php and Mysql working you will need to read the next installment of All about httpd.conf php.ini Mysql support for PHP, manual Installation of Apache, PHP and MySQL

Once Apache is installed you should see a little white circle with a small green arrow in it pointing to the right and a small red feather sticking out of it, this is the Apache Monitor, it will indicate if Apache is running correctly or is stopped ot started.

If you open up your browser you should put in trhe address bar:
http://127.0.0.1 or http://127.0.0.1/
You will see a page that says ; if you can see this, it means that the installation of the Apache web server software on this system was sucessful.