First step – download Laconica, and unzip to folder, say, c:\xampp\htdocs\laconica.

Enable InnoDB by heading to c:\xampp\mysql\bin\my.cnf and at line 128 make yours look like this:

# Comment the following if you are using InnoDB tables
#skip-innodb
innodb_data_home_dir = “C:/xampp/mysql/”
innodb_data_file_path = ibdata1:10M:autoextend
innodb_log_group_home_dir = “C:/xampp/mysql/”
innodb_log_arch_dir = “C:/xampp/mysql/”
## You can set .._buffer_pool_size up to 50 – 80 %
## of RAM but beware of setting memory usage too high
innodb_buffer_pool_size = 16M
innodb_additional_mem_pool_size = 2M
## Set .._log_file_size to 25 % of buffer pool size
innodb_log_file_size = 5M
innodb_log_buffer_size = 8M
innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit = 1
innodb_lock_wait_timeout = 50

Next install curl. Open c:\xampp\apache\bin\php.ini and remove the semicolon in front of:

extension=php_curl.dll

Save the file. Restart Apache. Create a phpinfo page by adding this line to a new file:

phpinfo();

And saving as c:\xampp\htdocs\phpinfo.php. Open in your web browser by going to http://localhost/phpinfo.php. Search for the word Curl, it should appear as a heading.

Next get XMLWriter working. In c:\xampp\apache\bin\php.ini remove the semicolon in front of:

extension=php_xmlwriter.dll

Save the file. Restart Apache. Check your phpinfo page for the header XMLWriter.

While looking at phpinfo, search for the headers “MySQL”, which should be there. Also “GD” should be there, “mbstring”, and “gettext”.

Go back to c:\xampp\apache\bin\php.ini and remove the semicolon in front of:

extension=php_mailparse.dll

And put it after extension=php_mbstring.dll so it looks like:

;extension=php_lzf.dll
;extension=php_maxdb.dll
extension=php_mbstring.dll
extension=php_mailparse.dll
extension=php_exif.dll
extension=php_mcrypt.dll

Save the file. Restart Apache. Check your phpinfo page for the header Mailparse.

Open c:\xampp\apache\conf\httpd.conf. Remove the # in front of:

#LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

Restart your webserver.

Fire up PHPMyAdmin by going to http://localhost/phpmyadmin. If it asks you for a username or password, it’s something you’ve set.

Click on the privileges link. Click the Add a new User link. Add a user, say “Laconica”. Add a password, in this instance “Laconica”. Do think a little about security here, and don’t use my defaults. Select the “Create database with same name and grant all privileges” option. Then click Go.

Select the Laconica database. Click Import, and select the following file:

c:\xampp\htdocs\laconica\db\laconica.sql

Click Go. You should see a whole bunch of Laconica tables.

In Explorer, copy c:\xampp\htdocs\laconica\htaccess.sample to just .htaccess.

Open .htaccess. Change:

RewriteBase /mublog/

To

RewriteBase /laconica/

Or wherever your Laconica installation is.

In Explorer, copy c:\xampp\htdocs\laconica\config.php.sample to just config.php.

Open config.php. Important lines to configure are:

$config['site']['server'] = ‘localhost’;
$config['site']['path'] = ‘laconica’;

These point to your server, and the path you’ve set to laconica.

$config['db']['database'] = ‘mysql://laconica:laconica@localhost/laconica’;

Your MySQL username and password and database.

Uncomment:

#$config['db']['ini_your_db_name'] = $config['db']['schema_location'].’/laconica.ini’;

And change to

$config['db']['ini_laconica'] = $config['db']['schema_location'].’/laconica.ini’;

Also:

$config['site']['fancy'] = true;

Set this as true if you copied over htaccess.sample to .htaccess.

Now go to http://localhost/laconica. It should all work.