XAMPP Launcher 1.5 / XAMPP 1.7.7 (web development stack) Released

John T. Haller's picture
Submitted by John T. Haller on October 23, 2011 - 6:10pm

XAMPP LogoXAMPP Launcher 1.5 has been released. It's a simple launcher utility that lets you easily add a link to the PortableApps.com Menu for XAMPP, the portable Apache, mySQL, PHP and more package. This release adds Unicode support for the launcher, the latest PortableApps.com Format and corrects an issue with upgrades removing XAMPP when used with an internal directory rather than the drive root. XAMPP itself was also updated to 1.7.7, so users should manually upgrade their XAMPP setup as well. It's all open source and completely free.

XAMPP Launcher can be updated automatically or installed from the app store in the PortableApps.com Platform. XAMPP itself must be manually installed following the instructions on the XAMPP Portable homepage.

Features

XAMPP ScreenshotXAMPP is a complete web, database and FTP server package for Windows that's ready to go in minutes and completely portable. The full XAMPP package includes:

  • Apache
  • MySQL
  • PHP + PEAR
  • MiniPerl
  • OpenSSL
  • phpMyAdmin
  • XAMPP Control Panel
  • Webalizer
  • Mercury Mail Transport System
  • FileZilla FTP Server
  • SQLite
  • ADODB
  • Zend Optimizer
  • XAMPP Security

XAMPP Lite leaves off the additional packages and sticks to Apache, mySQL, phpMyAdmin, SQLite and related packages resulting in an installation that's significantly smaller. There are no upgrade packages for XAMPP Lite like there are for XAMPP, though.

New in This Release

The XAMPP Launcher is now in the current PortableApps.com Format and features an improved installer. The XAMPP logo was updated. Both the launcher and installer are now digitally signed to ensure integrity.

PortableApps.com Installer / PortableApps.com Format

The XAMPP Launcher is packaged in a PortableApps.com Installer so it will automatically detect an existing PortableApps.com installation when your drive is plugged in. WinMerge Portable is packaged in the PortableApps.com Format, so it automatically works with the PortableApps.com Suite including the Menu and Backup Utility.

Download

The XAMPP Launcher and XAMPP itself are available for immediate download from the XAMPP page here at PortableApps.com. Get them today!

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Comments

I had some difficulty getting these setup with my XAMPP/PortableApps configuration, so I documented the steps I took to getting it all working.

The following steps were used to install XAMPP 1.7.7 (32-bit) on PortableApps.com version 10.1.2 running on a USB 3.0 external hard drive using an Intel Core i5-2540/2.60GHz CPU running Windows 7 Enterprise SP1 64-bit OS with 4GB of RAM.

What you will need:

Configuration Assumptions

PortableApps.com folder:
P:\PortableApps
jPortable folder:
P:\PortableApps\CommonFiles\Java
XAMPP Portable folder:
P:\PortableApps\xamppPortable
XAMPP Install folder:
P:\PortableApps\xamppPortable\App\xampp

Installation/Configuration

  1. Execute XAMPP_1.5.paf.exe to create the folder structure for XAMPP Portable

    • Select your install language
    • Choose the destination folder
      • These instructions assume the folder will be named “xamppPortable” under your Portable Apps folder
      • This path (e.g. P:\PortableApps\xamppPortable) will be your “XAMPP Portable” folder
  2. Unzip the XAMPP Install Archive file to the App folder inside of the “XAMPP Portable” folder (e.g. P:\PortableApps\xamppPortable\App)
    • All of the archived files are contained in a folder named “xampp,” so the archive should be unzipped directly to the App folder and not a subfolder
    • This path (e.g.e P:\PortableApps\xamppPortable\App\xampp) will be your “XAMPP Install” folder
  3. Edit the XAMPPLauncherU.nsi file found inside of the “XAMP Portable” folder under the Other\Source folder (e.g. P:\PortableApps\xamppPortable\Other\Source) with the text editor of your choice
    • At the end of the file is a Section “Main”
    • In this section, change all occurrences of the text “xampp-control.exe” with “xampp-control-3-beta.exe”
    • Save the file and exit your editor
  4. Open NSIS Portable and click on “Compile NSI scripts”
    • Follow the instructions to open the XAMPPLauncherU.nsi file you edited in the previous step
    • Once you receive the message “Finished Successfully” in the MakeNSISW application title bar, click Close
    • The XAMPPLauncher.exe file found in the root of your “XAMPP Portable” folder has now been updated to use the version 3 beta of the XAMPP Control Panel
  5. From your “XAMPP Install” folder, execute “setup_xmapp.bat”
  6. Edit the catalina_start.bat file found in the root of your “XAMPP Install” folder (e.g. P:\PortableApps\xamppPortable\App\xampp\catalina_start.bat)
    • Comment out the code that searches the registry for the JDK
      +----
      IF EXIST tomcat\logs\catalina.pid (
      del /F/Q tomcat\logs\catalina.pid
      )
      :: echo.
      :: echo [XAMPP]: Searching JDK HOME with reg query ...
      :: set KeyName=HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\JavaSoft\Java Development Kit

      :: reg query "%KeyName%" /s
      :: if %ERRORLEVEL% == 1 (
      :: echo . [XAMPP]: Cannot find current JDK installation!
      :: echo . [XAMPP]: Cannot set JAVA_HOME. Aborting ...
      :: goto :END
      :: )
      +----

    • Set the “JAVA_HOME” to the relative jPortable location (3 levels up from the current folder, in this case)
      +----
      set "CURRENT_DIR=%cd%"
      set "CATALINA_HOME=%CURRENT_DIR%\tomcat"
      set "JAVA_HOME=%CURRENT_DIR%\..\..\..\CommonFiles\Java"

      :: only for …
      +----

    • Comment out additional code that searched the registry for the JDK
      +----
      :: set CATALINA_OPTS=-Djava.library.path="%CATALINA_HOME%\bin"

      :: set Cmd=reg query "%KeyName%" /s
      :: for /f "tokens=2*" %%i in ('%Cmd% ^| find "JavaHome"') do set JAVA_HOME=%%j

      echo.
      +----

    • Save the file and exit your editor
  7. Edit the catalina_stop.bat file found in the root of your “XAMPP Install” folder (e.g. P:\PortableApps\xamppPortable\App\xampp\catalina_stop.bat)
    • Comment out the code that searches the registry for the JDK
      +----
      :: echo.
      :: echo [XAMPP]: Searching JDK HOME with reg query ...
      :: set KeyName=HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\JavaSoft\Java Development Kit

      :: reg query "%KeyName%" /s
      :: if %ERRORLEVEL% == 1 (
      :: echo . [XAMPP]: Cannot find current JDK installation!
      :: echo . [XAMPP]: Cannot set JAVA_HOME. Aborting ...
      :: goto :END
      :: )
      +----

    • Set the “JAVA_HOME” to the relative jPortable location (3 levels up from the current folder, in this case)
      +----
      set "CURRENT_DIR=%cd%"
      set "CATALINA_HOME=%CURRENT_DIR%\tomcat"
      set "JAVA_HOME=%CURRENT_DIR%\..\..\..\CommonFiles\Java"
      +---
    • Comment out additional code that searched the registry for the JDK
      +----
      :: set Cmd=reg query "%KeyName%" /s
      :: for /f "tokens=2*" %%i in ('%Cmd% ^| find "JavaHome"') do set JAVA_HOME=%%j

      echo.
      +----

  8. Access to the Tomcat Administration is not set at default, so you must take the following steps to provide BASIC access
    • From the XAMPP Control Panel, click on the “Config” button on the Tomcat line
    • Select “tomcat-users.xml” to edit the users file
    • Inside the <tomcat-users>…</tomcat-users> section, you need to add the following roles:

      <role rolename="manager-gui"/>
      <role rolename="manager-status"/>

    • You may also want to add the following roles:

      <role rolename="admin-gui"/>
      <role rolename="admin-script"/>
      <role rolename="manager-script"/>
      <role rolename="manager-jmx"/>

    • You also need to add at least one user/password (do not leave blank):

      <user username="" password=" " roles=" manager-gui,manager-s tatus"/>

    • You can assign additional roles by listing them in the “roles” attribute separated by commas