I, like most web developers, use the excellent XAMPP to develop and test PHP/MySQL websites and applications on my local machine. The problem is the XAMPP doesn’t come with the Zend framework installed by default.
If you want to develop with Zend, you could always use Zend Server CE instead of XAMPP, as Zend Server comes with the Zend framework installed. The downside to that is that the Zend server is not as simple to set up and use as XAMPP, and if you’ve already been using XAMPP, migrating to Zend server can be a real pain in the ass, and you can’t run both XAMPP and Zend server together.
If you google installing Zend in XAMPP, there are many different guides, all of which seem overly complicated. Installing the zend framework under XAMPP is actually a lot simpler than most guides online would suggest, and using the following guide you should be able to run Zend Apps in your existing XAMPP environment in a matter of minutes. (more…)