This is not really a traditional FAQ. More of a user provided hints, tips, and debugging help.
PHP not keeping sessions active between pages
This can usually be solved by editing php.ini and setting the session.use_trans_sid parameter to 1 so the line looks like
session.use_trans_sid = 1
When Apache launches, it gives error: No installed service named "Apache2"
For some reason Apache doesn't always install the service. What you need to do is go into command prompt (start > run > type in cmd ) then type in:
c:\apache2\bin\apache -k install
Make sure change that path to the location you installed Apache to. That should put the service you need back in.
A reader told me they also had the same problem and to fix it they went into the "Custom" option during Apache Install and changed the install location. He thought the problem was due to the old "space-in-the-name" problem. Reinstalling to a path without spaces fixed the problem for him. On the other hand, i've installed it many times with the spaces and never had a problem.
Apache gives the error Only one usage of the socket address (protocol/network address/port) is normally permitted.
This message means that something else is already using your port 80 that apache wants to use. Check to make sure you don't have something like Microsoft's IIS (Internet Information Server), some file sharing program with a 'remote login' option, or some other type of server that might be using port 80.
MySQL won't start as a service
A reader with this problem said he completely uninstalled MySQL then reinstalled changing the MySQL service name from the default to mysql41 (or any other name different than default) and it started right up after that.
How do I install a module for PHP like GD2
In your php.ini file, make sure the "extension_dir" setting is correct (so php knows where to look for the GD extension), then just search for extention you want like:
;extension=php_gd2.dll
and remove the ; in front of it so apache knows to load the module. Simply restart apache and it should load the module and work.
How do I install phpMyAdmin
Because of frequent requests, i'm going to give a simple 1-2-3 on how to install phpMyAdmin. If you want to install it "correctly" you should follow their official docs. If you want to get it working fast, do this:
- Download the sucker (there are "quick downloads" links at the top left)
- Extract it somewhere in your document_root (the folder where your html "web files" are). It creates it's own sub-folder which you might want to rename after extracting
- Rename the ugly long-tailed phpMyAdmin-2.9.2-all-languages-utf-8-only folder it created to something shorter like: phpmyadmin
- Edit the file phpmyadmin/libraries/config.default.php ignoring all the "do not edit" wrnings and scroll down to about line 150. The lines you want to fill out are:
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['user'] = 'root'; // MySQL user
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = ''; // MySQL password
- Load the sucker up in your browser like http://localhost/phpmyadmin/ (or wherever you installed it to)
If you have any of these problems, or any others and you solve them, I would
like to hear 
so solutions can be added to this page.