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=curl
extension=fileinfo
extension=gd
extension=mbstring
extension=openssl
extension=pdo_mysql
extension=pdo_sqlite
extension=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.php
php -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 info
php -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

8. Install the Tina4 CLI

The Tina4 CLI is a Rust-based binary that manages project scaffolding and the dev server. Run this in PowerShell:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tina4stack/tina4/main/install.ps1 | iex

Verify:

tina4 --version

You're ready!

Start a new Tina4 project:

tina4 init php my-awesome-site
cd my-awesome-site
composer install
tina4 serve

Open http://localhost:7146 -- welcome to Tina4 on Windows!