Installing Latest Apache Web Server on Windows 10

By Prof. Dr. T. Ashok Kumar March 18, 2018

This tutorial describes step-by-step instructions to install the latest Apache HTTP Server software (latest stable version is 2.4.32, as on date 18 March 2018) on Windows 10 operating system.

About Apache HTTP Server

Apache HTTP Server (“Apache” and “httpd”) was launched in 1995 and it has been the most popular web server on the Internet since April 1996. The Apache HTTP Server Project is a collaborative software development effort aimed at creating a robust, commercial-grade, featured, and freely-available source code implementation of an HTTP (Web) server. This project is part of the Apache Software Foundation.

The latest released version of Apache HTTP Server Project is Apache HTTP Server 2.4.29 (as on date 18 March 2018). This version of Apache is the latest GA release of the new generation 2.4.x branch of Apache HTTPD and represents fifteen years of innovation by the project, and is recommended over all previous releases.

Downloading Apache HTTP Server

The Apache HTTP Server Project itself does not provide binary releases of software, only source code. Individual contributors may provide binary packages as a convenience, but it is not a release deliverable. If you cannot able to compile the Apache HTTP Server yourself, you can obtain a binary package from numerous binary distributions available on the Internet. The final and official binary release of Apache HTTP Server software is Apache HTTP Server 2.2.25, which can be download from https://archive.apache.org/dist/httpd/binaries/win32/.

There are popular options suggested by Apache for deploying Apache HTTPD, and, optionally, PHP and MySQL, on Microsoft Windows, include:

Apache Haus (Portable, Apache Only)
Apache Lounge (Portable, Apache Only)
BitNami WAMP Stack (Installable, Apache + MySQL + PHP)
WampServer (Installable, Apache + MySQL + PHP)
XAMPP (Installable, Apache + MariaDB + PHP + Perl)

For more details on Apache installation in windows OS, refer to the official site of Apache (apache.org).

Step-by-Step Instruction

1. Open downloads page of Apache Haus and click the image link near ‘Download Locations’ to download Apache 2.4.32 x64 (“httpd-2.4.32-o102n-x64-vc14.zip”) binary for the 64-Bit operating system.

2. Decompress the downloaded file (“httpd-2.4.32-o102n-x64-vc14.zip”) and copy the folder “Apache24” to the “C:” drive.

The “Apache24” directory consists of major sub-directories such as “bin” (binary files), “htdocs” (web pages), “conf” (configuration files), “cgi-bin” (CGI server scripts), “error” (web template files for displaying server errors), “icons” (Apache server web page theme images), and other sub-directories/help files.

3. Open the “bin” sub-directory and run the “ApacheMonitor” binary with administrator privileges.

4. If you have done step 3 successfully, the “ApacheMonitor” icon appears in the notification area (bottom-right corner of the taskbar). Right-click the icon and select “Open Apache Monitor” from the menu.

5. Select “Apache2.4” from the “Service Status:” and click “Start” button to run the Apache HTTP Server. If the process is successful, a small green icon appears near the list “Apache2.4” in the “Service Status:”. Click “OK” button to hide the window.

6. Open the web browser and enter the IP “http://127.0.0.1“ or URL “http://localhost” in the address bar to open the test page of Apache HTTP Server. You will be greeted by the following page.

We can also test SSL (HTTPS) by entering the IP to “https://127.0.0.1” or URL “https://localhost” in the address bar to open the test page of Apache HTTP Server with SSL enabled.