Well, it's fine enough to get that on one's host (Gee! Thanks a lot, Trap17...) Knowing how the usual geek react, it might be expected that most people considering to make use of a database on their site will want to do most of the tedious job of developing and testing on their own local system before sending the wrapped-up result on their domain/subdomain.
This involves four basic steps (sorry for the compuwizs, this tutorial is merely for beginners, and beginners on Windows 2000/XP at that):
1. Install a local Apache server,
2. Install a MySql local server,
3. Install locally PhpMyAdmin,
4. Install Php.
Now, there is a way to do the *damn* 4-steps thing in one shot, and that's to use XAMPP, which you will find at:
http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html
As far as I know, XAMPP does the job like a charm, but I didn't insist on going this way, so I can't tell for sure.
I'm among those pig-geaded guys willing to keep control over things (as I'm sure many Trap17 users also are), so I'd rather do the 4 steps myself just to make sure I understand what the *Hell* I'm doing. Those interested will find excellent pages about the whole installing process starting at :
http://www.devarticles.com/c/a/Apache/Inst...-under-Windows/
Those growing impatient can find something even shorter at:
http://www.sematopia.com (be patient, their server is sometimes a bit slow, it's near the end of the page you get).
Now, this tutorial is meant to address what you get after the above installation process is completed. If you proceeded according to the guidelines reported above, you should have a php.ini files located in your c:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\directory. Wait! There comes the catch if you installed a Php 4.3.9 or 4.4.1 version (I dunno if this happens with Php V 5+).
Testing the whole installation implies you open a page within your favorite browser and then type http://localhost/phpMyAdmin. Careful with the typing, browsers are very much case-oriented. That's precisely when you get a silly message telling you that it can't locate a "php_mbstring.dll" which is (according to what I know) some stuff related with displaying oriental characters using the Utf-8 coding. And unfortunately Utf-8 is the most widely accepted coding among developers and DB developments these days.
If you don't want to spend hours on the Web trying to get a rather elusive info, here's what I suggest:
1. Open the php.ini with your favorite editor (notepad, Wordpad, whatever), c:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\php.ini and find the line:
extension_dir = "./" (there's only one line of this kind), and replace it with :
extension_dir = "c:\php\extensions" exactly as written here,
1.1 optionally. You might also want to uncomment (erasing the semicolon at the beginning of the line) the loading of php_mbstring.dll. For that, you have to fetch the line ;extension=php_mbstring.dll (windows extensions, near the end of the php.ini script) and uncomment it in the form extension=php_mbstring.dll. I'm not absolutely sure it's really necessary though, since I saw no influence of that on my PhpMyAdmin local testing and using.
2. Stop the Apache server (Programs>Apache HTTP Server 2.0.52>Control Apache Server>Stop).
3. Start again the Apache server (Programs>Apache HTTP Server 2.0.52>Control Apache Server>Start),
4. Try again to get to http://localhost/phpMyAdmin. It should work without an error message, now.
Good luck
