Xampp will let you run just one simple automatic setup file to properly configure apache, php and mysql for your computer. This is especially useful for the Microsoft Windows platform, which doesn't have any package management tools and thus normally leaves the installation process complicated. Note that Xampp is available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

With this installed, you'll be able to use your own computer just like a web site. Copy your WSN autosetup.php into the /htdocs/ subdirectory of where you installed xampp, and you'll be able to install WSN on your computer by typing http://localhost/autosetup.php in your favorite web browser. This lets you test on your own computer, instead of on a live website. You can even contruct your whole site on your own computer and then just backup the database and files and restore it to your server (though if you do that you'll need to edit your config.php to set the proper directory url and file path after moving to the remote host).

To create the database for your install you should find phpmyadmin at http://locahost/phpmyadmin . Your mysql user and password will default to root with no password.