The following is a compilation of notes taken while installing and configuring Symfony for Windows XP with Apache 2.2:

The Process

  • Make sure that PHP is installed, then go to your PHP directory (i.e., C:\php) and double click go-pear.bat.
  • It will ask whether you would like to install a system-wide or local copy, type in “local” and press enter, it will ask you to confirm, type in “yes” and press enter.
  • You should see a list displaying a suggested file layout, press enter and continue.
  • The installer will ask if you would like to “alter php.ini” type in “Y” and press enter.
  • After the installer has completed, open up a command prompt window and go to the root directory (i.e., C:\). You can do this by typing: “cd \”.
  • From the command prompt type: “pear channel-discover pear.symfony-project.com” and press enter. It should tell you “Discover of channel “pear.symfony-project.com’ succeeded”.
  • Now to install symfony, type in:
Pear install symfony/symfony
  • You should see text that says “downloading symfony-1.0.6.tgz” and some loading progress, after the download is completed it will install symfony, and if everything goes well it will say “install ok”.
  • After the installation is complete, navigate to the directory in which you would like to initialize your first symfony project and make sure that it’s within your web root (e.g., C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\htdocs\symfony).
  • When you’re in your target directory type:
symfony init-project myproject
  • You should see a dump of assets. When it’s complete, type in:
symfony init-app myapp
  • After this is complete, navigate to the directory into which you initiated your symfony project (e.g., C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\htdocs\symfony) and verify that within the “web” directory that there is an “sf” folder, chances are that folder is nonexistent. You’ll need to navigate to C:\php\PEAR\data\symfony\web\ (or, in my case: C:\php5\pear\data\symfony\web\) and copy the “sf” folder from there into the “web” folder within your install directory. You should be good to go.