MyBB is another good forum software. You can install using a one-click installer like Softaculous, Instamojo provided by your hosting provider, and see if MyBB is a good fit for you.
What if you do not have any Web Hosting?
No worry…
You can use XAMPP, WAMP, or any other web development software to install MyBB on Windows local host. This will help you to evaluate the forum before moving to production
This is what we are going to cover in this article.
MyBB, in brief
MyBB forum is free and open-source forum software. It is intuitive, extensible, and incredibly powerful forum software. It offers good features like forums to threads, posts to private messages, search for profiles, and reputation to warnings.
This forum has everything you need to have to run a community or forum website. There are a good number of themes and plugins available to extend functionality.
MyBB Features,
- Plugins – Supports the plugin system to make adding more features to the forum easy.
- Themes – built-in template and theme editor give you complete control over your forum’s design.
- Moderation – Powerful and convenient tools for forum moderators and staff to work by your side.
- Administration – Developed and refined to put you in full control of your forum.
- Discussions – Infinite possibilities arise from every conversation on your forum.
- Users – Features to keep your users engaged and active.
- Messaging – Participate in private conversations with several registered users at a time.
- Performance – MyBB has been carefully developed to be both powerful and extremely efficient
1. Download and install XAMPP
XAMPP is a free and open-source package that provides Apache, PHP, MySQL, and other required software. Go to the download page and install XAMPP. Installation is super easy and wizard-driven. You will not face any issues, in case you have any problems you can refer to this article for more details and step-by-step instructions.
Open XAMPP control panel and start Apache and MySQL service. Both services are needed, as phpBB is built on the PHP Technology stack and we are going to install it on MySQL. You can use any other database like Oracle, PostgreSQL.
Make sure the Module icon turns green and PID(s) and Ports(s) are populated on the XAMPP control panel.
2. Download MyBB Forum Software
Download forums software from the official download page. 1.8.13 is the current version at the time of writing this article. It is a zip file.
Click on Download MyBB 1.8.13 button shown the below image.
3. Create MySQL Database and User
MyBB needs a MySQL database to store the database object. Open PHPMyAdmin create user and database. Create MYSQL Database MyBB and User mybbadmin as shown below using phpMyAdmin dashboard.
4. Start the MyBB forum installation wizard
Extract downloaded file to a drive. It has 2 folders upload and documentation. Rename upload folder to mybb and copy it to C:\xampp\htdocs folder where XAMPP is installed.
Open a web browser and type http://localhost/mybb on the address bar. It opens below a window and your installation is started.
5. Welcome
This is a welcome page that shown an overview of the installation process. There are different sections. You need to enter valid information and click on next. It is easy to install Wizard Driven Installation.
6. License Agreement
Read License Agreement and click Next to progress further.
7. Requirements Check
MyBB installer checks all necessary requirement like PHP Version, Supported DB Extension, PHP XML extensions, etc. See the image below.
8. Database Configuration
Enter details like Database Engine, Hostname, Username and Password created in the above steps. If you want you can change table pre-fix, else leave it as is.
9.Table Creation
This just shows table created to store database object by the installer. Just check the log, if no error click next.
10. Table Population
There is some default data which MyBB install in tables just created above.
11. Theme Insertion
This step inserts the default theme and template file.
12. Board Configuration
Specify forum name, contact email, website name, etc. As I am installing on localhost I am not going to change website name.
13. Create Administrator Account
Create Admin Account. Enter the proper username and strong password for Admin user.
14. Finish Setup
This is the final step and your forum should be ready.
Below is the dashboard.
Below is the Admin Dashboard.
That’s it and MyBB forum software is installed successfully on Windows using XAMPP.
Conclusion
The installation steps are a little lengthy, but we have covered each in detail with Screenshot. Go ahead install MyBB on your windows matching and explore the features. This will help you if you want to use it for your production enviroment.
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