The best and popular CMS is Drupal and installation of Drupal 7 on a local computer is not complex. How to install Drupal 7 on a local computer is a first question and technique to install Drupal 7. When you start learning Drupal 7, you generally have to create a demo Drupal 7 website to your local computer and you do several experiment on the installed site. Moreover, if you would like to build a quality website using Drupal 7, you create that in your local computer and then host that website to your hosting account. So, its pretty important to install Drupal 7 on your local computer. Installation is pretty simple and straight forward for Drupal 7. This tutorial presents the local Drupal 7 installation on a Windows 7 computer.
Requirements:
- Drupal 7
- WAMP
Note: In this tutorial we use wamp for apache server and mySQL database. We use this as using wamp it is very simple to configure the apache server and mysql. However, if you would like to use similar type of server and data base, you can also continue the Drupal 7 installation on your local computer.
Steps to install Drupal 7 on a local computer:
Here, I would discuss the full step by step method to install Drupal 7 on your local computer. Just follow the following steps of this tutorial page and see how easy to install Drupal 7 on your local computer:
Step 1: First download the wamp and Drupal 7 form the website. You can get wamp form http://www.wampserver.com/en/ and Drupal 7 form http://drupal.org/project/drupal. Just download them to your computer. In the Drupal 7 download page, you will find two types of download-able file. One is the Recommended releases and other is the Development releases. Please download the Recommended releases as this is stable and bug free.
Step 2: Install wamp and click on Start all services. After complete the installation, you should start the wamp program and then you will find the wamp icon at the bottom-right corner of your desktop. Just right-click on the icon and choose Start all services to start the server and database.If everything is ok then the wamp icon will be glow green and you are ready to install Drupal 7 on your local computer.
Step 3: Extract the drupal 7 which you have downloaded in step 1 and keep the extracted folder to the www directory of your computer and rename it as you like. For example, we extract the folder and keep it to the www folder and rename the extracted folder as HideMyTips
Step 4: We now have to create a database and database user for our Drupal 7 website. To do that open any browser. In this tutorial, we will use Firefox. You may use other type of browser also. Type http://localhost/phpmyadmin/ in your browser address bar and hit Enter key of your keyboard. From the MySQL admin panel we have to create a database. Just create a database and a user of that database. The user must have full l permission of all database access. For example, we create a user hidemytips_db. For wamp, there is a default user root with no password. We should use that.
Step 6: We have completed, the database for our Drupal 7 website. Now, go to the browser and type http://localhost/your-extracted-folder. Here, your-extracted-folder will be the same folder which we have prepared in step 2. For example, we make a folder named as HideMyTips and so we have to type http://localhost/HideMyTips in the browser address bar and hit enter key.
Step 7: At the end of previous step, you will find the installation profile option of Drupal 7 installation on your local computer. Your have to choose a installation profile. There are two installation profile: Standard and Minimal. We would choose Standard as there are many things for our Drupal 7 website. You may also choose Minimal profile. But our recommendation is that as we are the beginner, we should start from the Standard profile. After choosing the installation profile, we would click on the Save and continue button to start our Drupal 7 website installation.
Step 8: We need to choose a language for our Drupa 7 installation. In this tutorial, we would use English installation method. If you would like to other language installation, please refer to the link “Learn how to install Drupal in other languages”. Click on Save and continue button to continue installation.
Step 9: In this step, we have to configure the database for our Drupal 7 website. This page has several field and we must have to fill the fields correctly. If we do any mistake, we could not continue the installation. The fields which are necessary to complete correctly, are the followings:
- Database type: We should have to select the database type. As we are installing using MySQL database for our website, we should choose MySQL, MariaDB, or equivalent. If your choose other type then just choose that.
- Database name: We have to type the database name correctly which we just have created before beginning the Drupal 7 installation. For our example site, we created a database named as hidemytips_db and we just type this in the “Database name” filed.
- Database username: We have to type the database username who has the full access to the database. For our example website, we type root as the database name of our local Drupal 7 installation.
- Database password: Now, we have to type the password of our Drupal 7 website. Remember, for our example website we are using the root user and it has no password and so we keep this field blank. If you have any password, then please specify the password in this field.
After completing the above steps correctly, please click on Save and continue button to continue the Drupal 7 installation.
Step 10: If all the information which you have provided in the previous step is fully correct, you will see that Drupal 7 has started installation and you will see that the installation progress bar. Please wait few seconds, until the progress bar complete 100% and it shows you the Configure site page.
Step 11: In this step, we have to configure our Drupal 7 website. In this page, we have some fields which are very important and need to configure correctly. The fields summary are the followings:
- Site name: The name of the Drupal 7 website. For our example Drupal 7 website, we type My Drupal 7 website [www.HideMyTips.com]. For your own website, just type the name of your website.
- Site e-mail address: Type the name of he website email address. This email is required for several purposes like to give messages to the users of your website. For our example website we type hideMyTips@hideMyTips.com.
- Username: Under site maintenance, you have the option to type the username of your website. Generally, the name which you would type will be the administrator user of the Drupal 7 website. So, you have to remember the username of the account to login to your website to administrator mood. For our example website, we type hideMyTips as the administrator of our website.
- E-mail address: This is very important field as you may need this field when you forget the password of your administrator account or your are unable to access the administrator account. Using this field you can easily recover the admin password of your Drupal 7 website. For our example website, we use hideMyTips@hideMyTips.com for our administrator account email.
- Password: This field is self explanatory and I think you already understand this filed. Just type the password for the administrator account of your Drupal 7 website.
- Confirm password: You just need to retype the password.
- Server settings: Here, you have to setup the default country and default time zone for your website. Just choose according to your website’s default country and default time zone.
- Update notifications: This portion is necessary to check the updates of Drupal 7 and send you email if the website founds any module update or Drupal core update.
When you have completed to configure the above steps, you are ready to go forward. Click on Save and continue button to continue and finishing your Drupal 7 installation.
Step 12: When you have completed the previous step, you are ready to see your installed Drupal 7 website. A confirmation message will confirm you that the Drupal installation complete with the message Congratulation, you installed Drupal! with a link Visit your new site. Just click on the link to go your Drupal website.
Step 13: You will see the following page when you completed all the above steps successfully. This page is the font page of your Drupal 7 website. Here, a welcome message is displayed.
Following the above mentioned steps, any one can easily complete the installation of Drupal 7 website. Here, we only explained the ways to install Drupal 7 on your local installation. For the real installation of Drupal 7 there is a few change. The change is that you have to create the database and user to your hosting panel and install Drupal on the hosting account. I have wish to write another tutorial to install Drupal 7 on a hosting account later. In the meanwhile, if you have faced any problem to install on your hosting account, please make your notes to the comment section or contact me through the website HideMyTips’s contact form (http://www.hidemytips.com/contact). I will try to help you as much as possible.
