Reposted due to popular demand(and me overlooking the popularity when it was removed).
It is vital to development to have a local install of WordPress. I personally use WAMP5 Server (wamp = windows apache mysql and php) as my development environment on my local computer. I find it extremely user-friendly and low on computer resource consumption. I’ve outlined the basics of how to get yourself rolling with a local install of WAMP and WordPress.

Download the latest WAMP5 server.

Download the latest installment of WordPress.

Install WAMP5 Server:
Double click the exe and follow through all the install prompts of WAMP and select www as your root folder (default).

Launch the WAMP5 Server:
you might get a few popups asking if you want to allow the program to run… allow it!

Navigate to your c:wampwww directory:
(Click on the new system icon and choose www directory)
Then delete the 3 files installed there

Unzip/Untar your WordPress:
to the C:wampwww directory and edit your wp-config-sample.php file to show the following:

define('DB_NAME', 'Test'); // The default by WAMP
define('DB_USER', 'root');
define('DB_PASSWORD', '');
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');

Be sure to rename wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php!!

Open your browser and type http://localhost and you should be at the Wordpress Install Page!

Update to the WAMP Wordpress Install

You may encounter some issues such as the following: permalinks not working, post’s being to big and won’t actually post to the database, among other things.

Here are some fixes for you:

• Left Click the WAMP icon in the system tray, go to and click PHP -> php.ini
• Ctrl + F to search, look for “upload_max_filesize”, increase this to say 100M do the same for “post_max_size”. This should take care of your posting issues.
• Save, then restart the WAMP services, you should be good to go with your Local PC WordPress development environment!