 so while i was redesigning my site i needed somewhere to develop the new design i didnt want to have to setup a sub domain on the live site because that would be a pain to have to ftp files up everytime i changed something so i installed xampp on my computer basically xampp is a all in one apache web server it installs apache php mysql everything i needed once you install it you get a web directory here c program filesxampphtdocs or whichever directory you install xampp to thats great everything works fine when you put things in that directory and browse to localhost but what about if you want to setup multiple sites that is where i really had to do some digging setting up multiple sites i found this really good article that walks you through setting up multiple sites on xampp the article was a little longer than i thought it had to be so i thought i would clarify some things find this file c program filesxamppapacheconfextrahttpd vhosts conf and open it in notepad find a line that says something like namevirtualhost 80 remove the sign that you see in front of it this turns it from being a comment to code that is actually executed this was not in any instructions i could find next scroll to the bottom and you can add multiple domains here is what mine looks like virtualhost 80 serveradmin webmaster localhost trevordavis dev documentroot c sites trevordavis dev webpages servername localhost trevordavis dev virtualhost virtualhost 80 serveradmin webmaster localhost trevordavis redesign documentroot c sites trevordavis redesign webpages servername localhost trevordavis redesign virtualhost finally find this file c windowssystem32driversetchosts and open it in notepad you need to add an entry for each site you setup in the httpd vhosts conf file my file looks like this 127 0 0 1 localhost 127 0 0 1 localhost trevordavis dev 127 0 0 1 localhost trevordavis redesign thats it once you have done this you can browse to http localhost trevordavis dev and http localhost trevordavis redesign on your computer when you have your web server running this means that you can view php files and execute sql locally its great let me know if you have any questions 