Windows installation

I am trying to install foswiki on a server 08 machine and your directions are not working with the new apache. For someone who runs networks but doesnt use Apache or your Foswiki its a little hard to understand some points.

when following:

Go to C:\www\foswiki\bin.
Run attrib -r * to make the files writeable; otherwise the next step will fail.
Run perl -I ..\lib ..\tools\rewriteshebang.pl.
Specify the location of your Perl executable (e.g. C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe) at the prompt and confirm.

I get errors. I had to go back to foswiki to do attrib as in bin it didnt work. Then once adding the path before perl -I I got past the permission error (after the attrib in foswiki vs bin) but I got an error multiple dependencies werent installed.

I am running the latest of apache which installs in c:\apache24 so there is no c:\program files\apache etc but I found the file in the c:\apache24 but when making a foswiki.conf and adding the include Apache will no longer start.

Can you help? Thank you.

Chris

-- ChristopherMay - 02 Dec 2016

Unfortunately we currently don't have any developers working with Windows. Foswiki is a volunteer effort, so platform support really depends upon getting the volunteers to make the effort. We would welcome contributions improving documentation for installation on Windows. However I do a sanity check on an old Windows XP VM before each release. Foswiki does still run on Windows, though it's not a recommended platform.

One change with Foswiki 2.x is that we no longer ship Perl dependencies, so you do need to install the perl dependencies. On Windows it's possible to install 2 different perl distributions. ActiveState perl, and Strawberry perl. Each of those perl distributions provide their own way of installing CPAN modules - ActiveState uses PPM, and I believe Strawberry uses the traditional perl cpan client. See SystemRequirements for perl modules on different platforms. For windows, open the section on CPAN for details on what to install. We'd be glad to add Windows Strawberry/ActiveState information to that document if someone would document the required commands.

Regarding Apache not starting, you might try running httpd -t from the command line. That tests the apache configuration and should show the errors directly there. You should also locate the default apache error log file to look for errors there.

If you want realtime support - check our IRC channel #foswiki. See GetLiveSupport

-- GeorgeClark - 03 Dec 2016