4. Download WordPress

Go to wordpress.org and download the latest build of WordPress. Go to the htdocs folder (where you installed the XAMPP), extract the wordpress.zip to a new folder (eg. mywordpress).

5. Run the Famous WordPress 5-minute Installation (install.php)

With your browser, go to http://localhost/mywordpress/wp-admin/install.php or http://localhost:8080/mywordpress/wp-admin/install.php, click Create a Configuration File and click Let's go! Fill out Database Name (eg., wordpress), User Name (needs to be root), Password, Database Host, and Table Prefix (it is always a best practice to change the default wp_ prefix to something else). Be sure the User Name is the same as your mySQL username, "root". Then click Run the Install, and follow the instructions to install WordPress. Fill in the Site Title, Username, Password twice, and email. Then click Install, and then Login.

3. Setup XAMPP Security

Go back to localhost or localhost:8080 in your web browser. Click on security and it will open a new window/tab to http://localhost/security/index.php or http://localhost:8080/security/index.php.

Then click on the link: http://localhost/security/xamppsecurity.php. This will allow you to change your mySQL password and .htaccess password. Since this is typically my sandbox for breaking things and developing code, I just enter a mySQL password. Click password changing and you will receive a message: The root password was successfully changed. Please restart MYSQL for loading these changes! Then close the window/tab.

If when you install it, port 80 is busy. This could be because of another program (like Skype) or your corporate network. So, if you have Skype installed, I recommend changing Skype's default port. It simply makes everything easier.

Open Tools > Options

Click Advanced

Click on Connection

Uncheck "Use port 80 and 443 as alternatives for incoming connections".
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Connection Remove port 80"/>

Click Save

Using a Different Port

Next we will launch Apache & MySQL. To do this easily, open the Control Panel.

Click Start on both Apache and MySQL.

Now, if you want, you can install Apache and your local webserver to another port like 8080. To change the port, you want to navigate to your XAMPP directory (e.g., C:/xampp/apache/conf) and open the file httpd.conf in your text editor. On line 45, you'll find:

To change it to port 8080, simply make this change:

Then later, on line 176, you'll see:

ServerName localhost:80

Change it to:

ServerName localhost:8080

If you switch to port 8080, you'll need to to always go to it via localhost:8080. Furthermore, WordPress will not allow you to enable multisite locally with a port number trailing localhost. It will redirect you to http://localhost/xampp/ or http://localhost:8080/xampp/.

You're host directory will be C:/xampp/htdocs based on httpd.conf. If you wish to change it, simply find it in httpd.conf on line 183 and make whatever changes you'd like.

PHP comes installed with a preset configuration. In local environments, I tend to set things a lot higher than I normally would in a production site simply because it is for me and for strenuous testing, auditing, developing, debugging, etc.

So navigate to the C:xamppphpphp.ini file and open within Notepad++.

The file will look like this initially.

Go to line 451, and make the following changes:
https://gist.github.com/9318470
This will allow you to do a bit more with the PHP instead of it timing out on you periodically.

And then on line 922, change upload_max_filesize to upload_max_filesize=100M
This will enable you to be able to upload large files to the WordPress Media area.

Then on line 1045, change the default timezone. For more information as to what value to place there, see http://php.net/date.timezone.
This obviously sets the server default timezone.

Now, there are other customizations you can make to the INI file, but these basic changes are all the essential ones.