Welcome To Xampp For Windows 10 May 2026

Once you’ve seen the welcome screen, you’ll notice a navigation bar with four essential links:

Visit the official Apache Friends website (apachefriends.org). Download the latest version of XAMPP for Windows. As of this writing, that is version 8.2.12, which includes PHP 8.2.

If you try to visit localhost and receive an error instead of the Welcome screen, check these common Windows 10 issues: welcome to xampp for windows 10

XAMPP is a free, easy-to-install Apache distribution containing MariaDB (MySQL compatible), PHP, and Perl. It’s designed to let developers run a local web server stack on their Windows 10 machines for development, testing, and learning without needing to deploy to a remote host. This article walks through what XAMPP provides, why you’d use it on Windows 10, how to install and configure it, and best practices for development and security.

Right-click the .exe installer and select "Run as Administrator." Windows 10’s User Account Control (UAC) can block XAMPP from writing to system folders. Running as admin prevents permission issues. Once you’ve seen the welcome screen, you’ll notice

Select English (or your preferred language). This changes the dashboard text but not the server’s core functionality.

You tire of ports. You want names. You edit the hosts file, adding: 127.0.0.1 myproject.local You configure virtual hosts in Apache, setting DocumentRoot to your project folder, granting privileges, and including directory directives that whisper, “AllowOverride All.” You set up pretty URLs with .htaccess, and your site begins to look like a proper citizen of the web rather than a nameless thing on port 8080. If you try to visit localhost and receive

Open a browser and go to:
http://localhost or http://127.0.0.1
You should see the XAMPP dashboard. Click phpMyAdmin to manage databases.