Get Up and Running with PHP on Windows#

Good news: you don't need WAMP, XAMPP, or any heavy installers in 2025. Just grab the official PHP binaries, unzip, and go!

1. Download the latest PHP zip (Thread-Safe version)#

Go to: https://windows.php.net/download/

• Choose VS16 x64 Thread Safe Zip (recommended for Tina4 and Composer)
• As of November 2025, the latest stable is PHP 8.3.x or 8.4.x

Direct link example (always verify the latest):

https://windows.php.net/downloads/releases/php-8.5.0-nts-Win32-vs17-x64.zip

2. Extract to C:\php#

1. Unzip the downloaded file
2. Create folder C:\php (if it doesn't exist)
3. Move all contents into C:\php

Your folder should now contain php.exe, php.ini-development, etc.

3. Create php.ini#

Copy php.ini-development → php.ini inside C:\php

copy C:\php\php.ini-development C:\php\php.ini

4. Add C:\php to your System PATH#

1. Press Win + X → System → Advanced system settings
2. Click Environment Variables
3. Under System variables, find and edit Path
4. Click New → add C:\php → OK → OK

Open a new Command Prompt or PowerShell and test:

php -v

You should see the PHP version output.

5. Enable common extensions#

Edit C:\php\php.ini and uncomment the extensions you need (remove the ;):

extension=curlextension=fileinfoextension=gdextension=mbstringextension=opensslextension=pdo_mysqlextension=pdo_sqliteextension=sqlite3; uncomment if you use PostgreSQL;extension=pdo_pgsql

6. Install Composer (one-liner)#

In PowerShell or CMD (as Administrator is not required):

php -r "copy('https://getcomposer.org/installer', 'composer-setup.php');"php -r "if(hash_file('sha384', 'composer-setup.php') === trim(file_get_contents('https://composer.github.io/installer.sig'))) { echo 'Installer verified'; } else { echo 'Installer corrupt'; unlink('composer-setup.php'); }"php composer-setup.phpphp -r "unlink('composer-setup.php');"move composer.phar C:\php\composer.bat

Now composer works globally:

composer --version

7. (Optional but recommended) Install Xdebug#

# Find your PHP version infophp -i | findstr "PHP Version"​# Go to https://xdebug.org/wizard and paste the output# Then download the DLL it recommends and place it in C:\php\ext\# Finally add to php.ini:zend_extension=xdebug

You're ready!#

Start a new Tina4 project instantly:

composer create-project tina4stack/tina4-php my-awesome-sitecd my-awesome-sitecomposer start

Open http://localhost:7145, welcome to Tina4 on Windows! 🚀