This is the day 3 for “30 Days To Joomla Website Setup”. Today I’ll introduce you to Joomla installation. Follow the following steps to Joomla installation. For Joomla installation example, I am taking version 1.5.8. I also assume that you are doing the experimentation on the box which is NOT connected to Internet.
1. Create a directory as D:\www\experiment.
2. Extract the zip file to D:\www\experiment directory. This is shown in the picture below:
3. After you extract Joomla in D:\www\experiment, it looks like the picture as below:
4. Open the file “C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts” and make an entry like this:
127.0.0.1  localhost         www.worldiswelcome.com
You can replace worldiswelcome.com with the domain name you want for your experiment box.
5. Now, open the browser and enter the url as below:
http://localhost/experiment or http://www.worldiswelcome.com/experiment
6. The url automatically becomes:
http://www.worldiswelcome.com/experiment/installation/index.php
and you see the initial installation picture as below. Choose your language and click Next
7. Now you are at “Pre-installation Check”. It shows some parameters. The ones shown in RED color indicate some warnings. You can skip these for the time being or fix them in the files in relevant files. Click on “Next” .
8. Now you are at license agreement page. Click on “Next”, this also means that you agree to the license.
9. Now you are on page “Database Configuration”.
10. Before doing anything in step 9, you need to create a database. Open a new explorer window and enter the url: http://localhost/phpmyadmin/ or http://www.worldiswelcome.com/phpmyadmin/ Any of these will do and take you to phpmyadmin page. Here you will create database for your need. Enter the name of the database required to be created in the box under “Create New Database”.See the picture below to create database.
11. In windows in local installation, in 99% cases you have user name “root” and password is nothing. Enter the information in the original explorer screen you saw in step 9. It should look something like the picture as below. Now, click “Next”.
12. If everything was successful in step 11, then you are taken to “FTP Configuration” screen. The screen is something like the picture below. Click next on this screen. Or You can enter the desired information.
13. Now you are at “Main Configuration” Screen. It looks like the picture below. Enter your “Site Name”, email id and password. Leave rest of the parameters as such and click “Next”. You can click “Install Sample Data”, if you want to install sample data provided with Joomla installation.
14. If you don’t click “Install Sample Data”, you are presented with the below screen. Click OK.
15. Now, at last you are presented with “Finish” Screen. Here you see wording in Big Red Color. It warns you to remove installation directory. So, remove D:\www\experiment\installation directory. You also see two buttons on top right side, “Site”, “Admin”. If you click on “Site” button.
16. That’s it and you are done. Congratulations!!! You have successfully completed your first Joomla installation.