Why setting up a web server on your computer is a good idea
You can build a web server at home even if you don't have a Windows Server license. This article will show you what to do.
You could be a web application developer who wants to run a testing environment on a personal computer. You can build websites and web apps right on your hosting service, but there are some benefits to doing it on your PC first:
- You can work without being connected to the internet;
- you can test different server configurations to find the best one for you;
- and you can work as quickly as possible on a local server.
Developers aren't the only ones who might find it useful to have a local web server on their PC. You might want to set up a private intranet so that you and your family can share music, calendars, household budgets, photos, and other things.
Setting up a web hosting environment on your PC doesn't require Windows Server or Linux.
Some people think they have to install Linux on their PC in order to set up a web server. The other option is to buy a Windows Server license, which is more expensive than the Microsoft operating systems for home use. The first solution is hard for someone who isn't used to Linux, and the second is way too expensive for most people. The good news is that any computer with a consumer version of Windows can be turned into a fully functional web server.
Windows for home use has some basic server features.
The copy of Windows that came with your PC already has server features built in. They aren't good enough for a professional web hosting company, but they are enough to run some web apps locally with little work. This article will show you how to turn on the Windows Server features, so you can start working with IIS (the web server) and the ASP.NET programming language. It will also explain how to set up an Apache web server with MySQL and PHP on the same Windows system.
How to turn on IIS Web Server on a Windows Home Edition
Here are the sections you need to read to turn on the IIS web server that comes with your Windows license:
1. Use the search box on Windows to find the "Turn Windows Features On or Off" tool.
By default, IIS is turned off. It needs to be turned on using the tool to Turn Windows Features On or Off, which can be found in the Control Panel or in the Windows Search bar.
2. Turn on IIS
Check Internet Information Services to turn on the web server features that come with Windows.
3. Open IIS Manager
Find the IIS Manager in the Windows Search bar and open it. This tool will help you manage your new web server.
4. Set up IIS to meet your needs
The Manager will show you how to use your newly installed web server right away. You can easily add new websites and change any setting with Manager. One good thing about IIS is that Manager has a very easy-to-use interface. This makes it easy to control every part of your web server. Still, to run popular CMSs like WordPress, you may need to set up IIS to work with PHP and MySQL. It is easy to set up PHP with IIS. To move forward, you may need to take a few more steps, which are described in an official Microsoft resource. After setting up PHP, you can set up a MySQL database so that WordPress or other popular platforms can be installed on your local web server. You can get MySQL Community Server and set up the database service by using another Microsoft tool. After this, your new web server is ready to run all the popular web apps that are usually installed on LAMP systems (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP).
How to Set Up a Windows WAMP Server
IIS is a simple web server that comes with every Windows operating system, so turning it on is easy. IIS is a good choice for web developers who use Microsoft server technologies like the ASP.NET programming language and the Microsoft SQL Server database. Even though PHP and MySQL were both made to work in a LAMP environment, it is still possible to install them on IIS. Most of the time, PHP and MySQL work best with Linux and either an Apache or NGINX web server. Even if you use Windows, you might want to install Apache on your computer so that PHP and MySQL can work with the web server that is usually used with them. WAMP is the name for this kind of set up.
You can set up a WAMP server by installing MySQL and PHP separately. However, this is a time-consuming step that you can easily avoid. In fact, there are several WAMP stacks that are already set up and ready to be installed, so you can have a web server that is perfectly set up in no time. Bitnami, a library of installers owned by VMware, offers one of the most popular WAMP stacks.
On Windows, you can set up a Tomcat Web server.
When building or installing web apps that aren't based on ASP.NET and Microsoft SQL Server or PHP and MySQL, you should think about alternatives to the popular WISA and LAMP stacks. Java server-side web programming is an example of a different kind of environment. Apache Tomcat is the most-used web server for running Java servlets. Most of the time, this solution is installed on Linux platforms, but you can still easily download a version for Windows from the official Apache Foundation website.
Conclusions
To set up a simple web server on your home computer, you don't need to buy expensive licenes for Windows Server or switch to a Linux distribution. Obviously, a home computer is not a good place to host a website that is meant to reach a large number of people. It can be used as a testing environment or to run an intranet that only a few friends or people in your house will be able to access.
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