How to Install phpMyAdmin on Your Windows PC

1. If you haven't done so already, download the phpMyAdmin Database Manager - You can download the software from the phpMyAdmin website. Be sure to download the phpMyAdmin-x.y.z.zip file. Save the file on your Windows Desktop.
2. Double click the phpMyAdmin Zip file you have saved on your desktop. Extract all the files in the archive into the directory "C:\Server\Apache2\htdocs\phpmyadmin" (which is the default DocumentRoot of Apache). The folder "phpmyadmin" should be all lower case. Make sure the files get extracted right into this directory, and not into "C:\Server\Apache2\htdocs\phpmyadmin\phpMyAdmin-x.y.z". (the phpMyAdmin-x.y.z part might be a little different on your computer)
   1. If this happens, using "My Computer", browse to "C:\Server\Apache2\htdocs\phpmyadmin\phpMyAdmin-x.y.z". From the browse window, click "Edit">"Select All". Now click "Edit">"Cut". Browse back one directory (to "C:\Server\Apache2\htdocs\phpmyadmin") and click "Edit">"Paste". Now right-click the phpMyAdmin-x.y.z directory and click "Delete". Then "Yes" when the confirm delete dialog comes up.
3. Open your favorite browser and in the address bar type "http://localhost/phpmyadmin/index.php".
4. If PHP was installed correctly, you should see the phpMyAdmin login page, BUT with an error.
5. This is OK, we are going to fix that. Start Notepad and open the file "C:\Server\Apache2\htdocs\phpmyadmin\config.inc.php". (If your machine does not have this file just create it) On some computers, this file might look like a real mess. Just lines and lines of of "junk". If this happens to you, close Notepad and open Wordpad (usually found in "Start">"All Programs">"Accessories">"WordPad") and open the "config.inc.php" file. Now everything should look like readable text. Click "File">"Save" to save this better looking version of the file. Now reopen the "config.inc.php" with Notepad.
6. Find the line that looks like this: cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'config'; And change the line so that it reads: $cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'cookie';
7. Find the line that looks like this: $cfg['blowfish_secret'] = ''; Inside '' put any word you want, like "holla". Its up to you. So after doing that, the line should look like: $cfg['blowfish_secret'] = 'holla';
8. In Notepad click "File">"Save" to save this file. You can now close Notepad.
9. Reload the page "http://localhost/phpmyadmin/index.php", and you should get a login page with no errors. To login to phpMyAdmin, use "root" as the Username, and for the password, use the root password you chose when installing MySQL.
10. Click "Login" and you should see a screen like this:
11. phpMyAdmin
12. If you see that page, you're done!