There's pretty much no way you could talk or think of web servers, and not include XAMPP in the discussion.

XAMPP is one of those highly-acclaimed tools that let its popularity and awards talk for itself. Over the years, it helped a lot of users and grow in popularity as a normal result. Being powerful, comprehensive and yet simple-to-manage were the main qualities that made XAMPP one of the most downloaded applications of its kind.

XAMPP is created with the main purpose to solve the fact that installing an Apache web server is not exactly an easy job, and it gets even harder if you want to add MySQL, PHP and Perl. Basically, XAMPP is defined and shortly described as an easy to install Apache distribution that also contains MySQL, PHP and Perl. Pretty much all you need to install, run and manage a web server, yet in an easy and convenient manner.

XAMPP is really very easy to install and to use - just download, extract and start.

At the moment there are four XAMPP distributions: for Windows, for Linux, for Solaris and for Mac OS X.

The distribution for Windows 2000, 2003, XP, Vista, and 7, its latest version, contains: Apache, MySQL, PHP + PEAR, Perl, mod_php, mod_perl, mod_ssl, OpenSSL, phpMyAdmin, Webalizer, Mercury Mail Transport System for Win32 and NetWare Systems v3.32, Ming, FileZilla FTP Server, mcrypt, eAccelerator, SQLite, and WEB-DAV + mod_auth_mysql.

XAMPP impresses by the fact it's incredible easy-to-install as well. You only need to download and extract XAMPP, that's all. There are no changes to the Windows registry (not true if you use the Windows installer version of XAMPP) and it's not necessary to edit any configuration files. It couldn't be easier!

Moreover, to help the user verify if XAMPP is working, it may use some sample programs that are included by default. There is a small CD collection program (written in PHP using MySQL) and a small guest book software (written in Perl) and several other demonstration utilities.

If you decide that XAMPP isn't needed any more just delete the XAMPP directory and it's completely removed from your system. However if you use the Windows installer version of XAMPP it's recommended to use the uninstall feature. As every installer the installer will make registry entries to remember the install.

For more information, please watch the movie that contains installation and complete features demo

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XAMPP Video Tutorial done by Softoxi.com