Windows installation

Installation Packages

If you are running a small (less than 30 users) Moodle server or just want to test Moodle on your Windows XP PC, pre-built packages are available for you to use. Here are links to pages containing step-by-step instructions for installing Moodle using install packages:

• Complete install packages for most Windows versions

• This section has a quick way to install a complete package on a Windows XP machine

• Installation guide for Windows using XAMPP in case you want to retrofit

• Installation guide for Windows using EasyPHP

• Installation guide - Moodle for Windows on a USB Memory Stick

Manual Installation

For medium to large installations (e.g. a college, university or business), it is best practice to install Moodle on your server manually.

• Plan your system capacity. This involves estimating the appropriate hardware to support the number of users in your organisation. See Installing Moodle in the How Many Users section for a method of doing this.
• Install your database server. You have a choice of MySQL (recommended), Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (only for Moodle 1.7 or later) or Oracle.
• Install PHP. See How to install PHP 5.x on Windows Server 2003 with IIS 6 for instructions.
• Install your web server. You have several choices - the decision as to which one to use will depend on your in-house expertise and your required level of sustainability:
  • Apache 2 is recommended as the most tested and popular for Moodle installations. See these instructions for manually installing Apache 2 on Windows.
  • IIS 6 can also be used. See the Windows forum for guidance on installation and, in particular, permission settings for using Moodle with IIS.
  • Other webservers are known to install on Windows, e.g. Lighttpd, so you may wish to experiment with these if available memory is low on your server.
• Install Moodle by getting the standard installation for Moodle from http://download.moodle.org/ and read Installing Moodle which has detailed generic information.
• Setup backups. Once Moodle is setup and configured, you should setup backups of the system in case of failure or loss of data.
  • To perform full site backups you need to backup the moodledata and moodle directories, webserver configuration (httpd.conf), PHP configuration (php.ini) and any php extensions which are non-standard, and the mysql database. To do this use the integrated backup program (Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Backup) or your own proprietary backup software (e.g. BackupExec). To backup your mysql database see the Backup FAQ.
  • To perform course backups see the Course backup page.
• Check your server security and performance. It is also good practice to read the Performance and Security documentation. Although much of the content is targetted at Linux/Unix users, there is a growing amount for Windows systems.
• Set-up your Active Directory authentication. You can use the standard LDAP authentication which prompts users with a username/password, or integrated NTLM authentication which does not require campus users to enter their credentials.

See also

• Windows-based server forum is the main forum for asking questions about your Moodle Windows installation.
• Installing APC in Windows contains instructions for using a PHP accelerator to reduce processor load.
• Installing Cron on Windows for setting up the Moodle scheduled task.
• Configuring aspell on Windows 2003 Server for setting up the Moodle spell checker.
• Running Apache and IIS on the same server forum discussion.