This tutorial is for XAMPP 1.7.3 running under Windows XP with Service Pack 3. It may be similar for other version combinations, but no guarantee is made. Assumes you have installed XAMPP. Instructions can be found here. UPDATE 17-March-2012:If you are running Windows 7 (and possibly Vista) the default security settings prevent you from running applications with administrative privileges. This means that you won’t be able to save changes made to the hosts file. For instructions on opening the hosts file for reading and writing please see this article. Installing XAMPP allows you to develop, test, and play around with web server code on your local machine. You can configure and test out your website locally, instead of live somewhere on the web. It does have the drawback that to access your website you have … Read entire article »