How To Run WordPress 2.5 On Your PC

It’s here – WordPress 2.5 has been released.

A different look and feel, and for those of us using self-hosted WordPress, some huntin’ and peckin’.

I wrote about running and reviewing WordPress 2.-beta1 and how you can set it up on your PC to start playing around with it. You can do the same with the final release as well.

Some folks are going to wait to upgrade because of the pain that could ensue. The pain of the unknown and having to spend time figuring it out when you’re too busy already. The pain of broken plug-ins and the time it will take to find out if your plug-ins still work in 2.5. Or the pain of finding one line of code you placed somewhere a year ago and forgot about it, which will break something important to you. 🙂

You might delay upgrading to WordPress 2.5 because you use Fantastico at your hosting site and you’re waiting on them to offer the one-click, automatic upgrade that Fantastico is so wonderful at. But, no matter how you slice it, you’ll have to upgrade sometime. And if you can afford it you can hire it out and have someone else do it for you. You can also wait to see how many revisions come flying out the door until things settle down and people are talking about how WordPress 2.5 is now stable.

For now, here’s a video of how to install WordPress 2.3 and 2.5 on your PC so you can run both side by side and do a comparison.
(21 minutes)
Here’s the video chunked up into three parts and not as good quality:

How To Run WordPress 2.5 On Your PC – Part 1
How To Run WordPress 2.5 On Your PC – Part 2
How To Run WordPress 2.5 On Your PC – Part 3

Here’s the outline I used for the video – Running and Reviewing WordPress 2.3 and 2.5.

1. Download and install xampplite from www.sourceforge.net
   1. Run setup_xampp.bat
   2. Run xampp-control.exe
2. Download and install WordPress 2.3 and 2.5 from www.wordpress.org
   1. Copy to C:\xampplite\htdocs\wordpress23 and wordpress25 respectively
   2. Copy wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php
   3. Change Database name, user name and password in wp-config.php
3. Browse to http://localhost and add two databases – wordpress23 and wordpress25
4. Browse to http://localhost/wordpress23 and wordpress25
   1. Change random-generated password to your own standard password so you don’t have to remember the random password.
5. Download and install two WordPress Themes from www.dailyblogtips.com and www.courtneytuttle.com. Of course, you can download any theme you like.

Fini!! Now Go Play!!

More videos to come in future posts…