Setting a Local Development Environment for Laravel on Windows | Install Laravel on Windows

Many developers use Windows for PHP projects, we will cover a basic XAMPP Setup for a Laravel project. Following these easy steps will help you run your PHP projects and install Laravel on Windows in a matter of minutes.

1.Installing XAMPP for Laravel

Download XAMPP for Windows from their official site: https://www.apachefriends.org/download.html
For our example, we’ve chosen PHP 7.1 and XAMPP 32 bit
Run the installer and select Apache, MySQL and phpMyAdmin
It’s recommended to make the installation in C:\ to avoid issues with Windows User permissions (or the drive where your Windows is installed)
After it’s complete do not start anything just yet.

2.Setting PHP from Windows CMD

Open Advanced System Settings (System Properties -> Advanced)
Open Environment Variables
On the top window select Path and click on Edit
In the new window click on New
We need to enter the path to XAMPP’s PHP

We will also add MySQL’s Path, click on New again and enter

C:\xampp\mysql\bin

3.Composer from Windows CMD

Download Composer’s Windows .exe installer: https://getcomposer.org/download/
Place the installer and run it from the added to Path directory –

C:\xampp\php

Now that we have Apache, PHP, MySQL and Composer installed, we’re ready to install Laravel, set a Virtual Host with a custom domain for local development. XAMPP’s Apache uses the htdocs folder for serving HTTP requests, we’ll set our custom Laravel Virtual Host under C:\xampp\htdocs\example\ which will be opened locally from example.com

4.Install Laravel on Windows with Composer

Open Window’s CMD or PowerShell

cd C:\xampp\htdocs

Install Laravel using Composer

composer create-project --prefer-dist laravel/laravel example

5.Creating MySQL Database for Laravel

Open the CMD or PowerShell again
Access the MySQL CLI

mysql -u root -p

Create Database for Laravel

CREATE DATABASE laravel DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;

6.Setting Laravel’s .env file

Navigate to C:\xampp\htdocs\example
Open the .env file and edit the MySQL Connection settings

DB_HOST=localhost
DB_DATABASE=laravel
DB_USERNAME=root
DB_PASSWORD=

7.Virtual Host with XAMPP

Navigate to C:\xampp\apache\conf\extra
Open httpd-vhosts.conf and append:

NameVirtualHost *:80 
<VirtualHost example.com:80>
 DocumentRoot "C:\xampp\htdocs\example\public"
 ServerName example.com
 ServerAlias www.example.com
 <Directory "c:/xampp/htdocs/example/public">
 Require all granted </Directory>
 </VirtualHost>

8.Enable mod_rewrite for Laravel

Open the httpd.conf file in C:\xampp\apache\conf\extra
Look for LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so and remove the ; at the start

9.Setting local domain with hosts file

Navigate to c:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc
Open the hosts file with Administrator Privileges
Append the line at the bottom

127.0.0.1 www.example.com example.com

Start Apache and MySQL, your local Laravel project will be opened from example.com and you’re ready to start working on it. When ready you can contact us to have it deployed on a WebHostFace server