Running Apache on Vista

Adnams Drinker · 12 May 2007 at 11:58

Is there any way to run Apache on Vista, specifically on a machine running Vista Home Basic?

Have tried installing the latest version like I did on my XP Home desktop machine, but it ain't having it on my Vista laptop. It gets most of the way through the install but pops up a DOS window with an error message saying 'Cannot start WinNT service' or something similar - can try again and get the precise message if needs be. Have uninstalled it for now.

Have also tried XAMMP using the installer version from the XAMPP website. When I open the XAMMP control panel, MySQL starts fine and shows the green 'running' indicator, but when I try and start Apache it just sits there doing precisely nowt.

Does Vista Basic lack the necessary support for running stuff like this, in the same way that XP Home can't run IIS? Or is Apache just not compatible with Vista as a whole?

If it's a Vista Basic thing, then £60 for an upgrade to Home Premium is a bit out of the question at the moment! Is there another web server I could run that will support PHP/MySQL?

marc2003 · 12 May 2007 at 13:27

i don't use apache but can't see why it wouldn't work? did you right click the installer and choose run as administrator?

personnally i use abyss webserver as it's much easier to configure than apache. it has a nice web interface to use for a start. much easier than messing about with text config files.

http://www.aprelium.com

the free versions is limited to one site per server but that shouldn't be a problem just for messing about on at home. and of course it supports just about any scripting language possible. i'm currently running php on mine along with mysql.

Adnams Drinker · 12 May 2007 at 13:57

marc2003 said:
i don't use apache but can't see why it wouldn't work? did you right click the installer and choose run as administrator?

personnally i use abyss webserver as it's much easier to configure than apache. it has a nice web interface to use for a start. much easier than messing about with text config files.

http://www.aprelium.com

the free versions is limited to one site per server but that shouldn't be a problem just for messing about on at home. and of course it supports just about any scripting language possible. i'm currently running php on mine along with mysql.

The Apache installer was a .msi file and when right-clicked, it doesn't show 'run as administrator' as an option.

Have downloaded Abyss though - it's installed OK and looks pretty damn good. About to go out, so I'll have a fiddle around with it later. Cheers for the pointer

Adnams Drinker · 13 May 2007 at 18:43

Not being able to run Apache was a bit of a PITA, but so far Abyss is proving a more than capable replacement - I'll mainly be using it with PHP/MySQL, but I notice it also supports Ruby on Rails, which I wouldn't mind trying out in the future

marc2003 · 13 May 2007 at 19:02

glad it's working ok. you'll notice if open task manager it uses a tiny amount of ram too. coupled with it's ease of use i'd say it's a cracking bit of kit.

Clarkey · 13 May 2007 at 20:00

i ran xampp on vista no probs at all, local access to pages was bizarely slow though.

Adnams Drinker · 13 May 2007 at 20:20

Clarkey said:
i ran xampp on vista no probs at all, local access to pages was bizarely slow though.

Maybe it's just because my lappy is using Vista Basic then - it wasn't having any of it with a direct install of Apache or via XAMPP, both of which run fine on my desktop machine that runs XP Home ...

Either way, Abyss is doing the biz more than adequately for my limited needs and I found a very handy tutorial site for us noobs here:

http://www.abyssunderground.co.uk/tutorials.php