Windows7 64 bit & any LAMP

Asides unofficial Apache 64 bit, lot of wondering!

[henry0]

Here comes the next big headaches
if you plan as many among us (well, I suppose) to get a new machine running wins7 64 bit
How are we going to install a Lamp ("homemade") or any Xamp or Wamp?
Will the regular 32 bit Apache, php etc or lamp or xamp run on a 64 bit machine?
Why can't we find any Apache 64 bit asides of the unofficial version? Is any "official version" coming up soon?
And speaking of the unofficial version, even to run it locally, could it be trusted?
Hope we could come with a potential solution!

[encyclo]

I run Vista 64-bit (which is essentially the same as Windows 7), and I run Apache/PHP with no problems at all.

Assuming it's a test server you're talking about and not a live server, simply install as normal - Apache installed automatically in

C:\Program Files (x86)\Apache Software Foundation

and PHP in

C:\Program Files (x86)\PHP

. Note, I prefer to install the components individually and from scratch, so I haven't tried any of the pre-prepared packages out there, but I suspect they will work perfectly as well. You merely have to remember to edit the configuration files in Administrator mode due to UAC.

So, in short, it's a non-problem as 64-bit Vista/7's 32-bit compatibility layer is seamless (and 64-bit Vista or 7 is way better than 32-bit XP anyway!). :)

[henry0]

Thanks, glad to know it could work.
yes this is about local dev/test machine.
But I am still puzzled on why the Apache 32 bit works on 64 bit, for I really thought it will not be feasible
Henry

[encyclo]

Most Windows applications are still 32-bit, so 64-bit Windows is designed to run those programs perfectly. 32-bit applications are installed into a separate program files directory (

C:\Program Files (x86)\

and have access to 32-bit Windows libraries.

There's no reason to go for 32-bit Windows now unless you have to run 16-bit MS-DOS programs (which won't run on 64-bit) or you have a netbook with an Atom processor.

As for Apache, I guess they will catch up with the release of a 64-bit, but for a test server it doesn't matter. For a live server, you would be missing out on the advantages of 64-bit (memory above 4Gb for example), so Apache + Windows 64-bit isn't ready for a production environment.