Manual:Installing MediaWiki on Windows Server 2019

The goal of this guide is to give a quick overview on MediaWiki installation on Windows Server 2019.

Requirements

The following items will be required:

Administrator permissions
https://windows.php.net/download PHP Non-Thread Safe Zip for Windows] (see Compatibility#PHP) for version requirements)
https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/ MySQL Community Downloads
MediaWiki
Software to extract the MediaWiki .zip installer file
Visual C++ Redistributable Packages or Visual Studio

Instructions

Apache

Set Default Document

Set default document to index.php.

Add index.php and move it to top of the list.

MediaWiki Part 1

Extract the media wiki archive into C:\inetpub\wwwroot\mediawiki directory.
If you have just one .tar file, extract that file into the C:\wamp\www\mediawiki directory.
Edit permissions on the images directory of the MediaWiki installation and add IUSR with modify privileges.

PHP

To install PHP, follow the steps below:

Install the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable. (see PHP site for specific version)
Extract the PHP zip into to a location of your choice. In this example C:\PHP is used.
Create the php.ini file by opening the php.ini-production file and saving it as php.ini.

Open your C:\PHP\php.ini file in Notepad and uncomment the values below by removing the semi colon symbol (;). Line numbers depend on version. Newer versions use the format extension=<ext> instead of extension='php_<ext>.dll for the extensions. (line numbers as of PHP 7.4.29)

extension_dir = "ext"   # Line 761
cgi.force_redirect = 1  # Line 778
cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1    # Line 798
fastcgi.impersonate = 1 # Line 810
fastcgi.logging = 0     # Line 814
extension=curl          # Line 914
extension=fileinfo      # Line 917
extension=gd2           # Line 918
extension=intl          # Line 921
extension=mbstring      # Line 924
extension=mysqli        # Line 926
extension=openssl       # Line 929
extension=pdo_sqlite    # Line 935
extension=pgsql         # Line 936
extension=sockets       # Line 944
extension=sqlite3       # Line 946

Edit permissions on the temp directory of windows (C:\Windows\Temp) and add IUSR with modify privileges.
Create a file called C:\inetpub\wwwroot\phpinfo.php, include the lines below.
Open web browser and access http://127.0.0.1/phpinfo.php, it should bring up a PHP information page. (If using IIS, this step won't work until IIS has been configured to run PHP)

Contents of file PHPInfo.php

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

IIS

Add environment variable for php
1. Under Control Panel, System, Advanced system settings, Environment Variables..., System variables, select path variable and click on Edit
2. Click on New button and add the PHP binary path. In this example C:\PHP is used.
Install CGI
1. Open Server Manager.
2. On the Dashboard, under "Configure this local server" choose "Add roles and features"
3. Click through to "server roles"
4. Ensure that CGI is selected under "Web Server (IIS) -> Web Server -> Application Development"
Add module mapping
1. Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager
2. Click on the server name in the left hand tree menu
3. Double-click handler mappings
4. click add module mapping in the menu on the right of the window or in the right click popup menu
5. Set request path to "*.php"
6. Module to "FastCgiModule"
7. Executable to "php-cgi.exe" specifically " C:\PHP\php-cgi.exe" in this example.
8. Set a name; for example php7.3

Secure the images directory

Create a web.config file in inetpub/wwwroot to disable execution of PHP scripts The file contents should be similar to

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
  <location path="mediawiki/images">
    <system.webServer>
        <security>
            <requestFiltering>
                <fileExtensions>
                    <add fileExtension=".php" allowed="false" />
                </fileExtensions>
            </requestFiltering>
      </security>
    </system.webServer>
 </location>
</configuration>

IIS should now be able to run php scripts. Open web browser and perform PHP step 7 to view the PHP information page.

Database

MySQL

To install MySQL follow the steps below:

Launch the installer, select Server only.
1. After the installer finishes installation you will be prompted to run the MySQL Server Instance Configuration Wizard.
2. Select Server Machine, then click Next
3. Confirm Enable TCP/IP Networking and Add firewall exception for this port are checked, then click Next.
4. Enter in root password, then click Next.
5. Confirm Install as Windows Service is checked, then click Next.

MediaWiki Part 2

To install MediaWiki follow the steps below:

If you want MediaWiki to be the default website follow the optional instructions below.
Configure MediaWiki by accessing the configuration URL (http://[server name]/mediawiki/mw-config/index.php).
Follow guide for using the configuration script. Ignore the GNU diff3 not found error.

Create specific IIS website for MediaWiki (Optional)

Configure MediaWiki as the default website for a host name or an IP address.

Select a name for the web site.
Rename the C:\inetpub\wwwroot\mediawiki folder to C:\inetpub\wwwroot\[web site name].
Open the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager, open the server name from the list.
Right click on Sites and choose Add Web Site....
1. Enter the web site name in the Site Name field.
2. Change the physical directory to C:\inetpub\wwwroot\[web site name].
3. Add a host name for your website or select an IP address.
Click OK to create the web site.

GNU diff3 Installation (Optional)

Common Errors

No styling when installing MediaWiki: Set the permissions for the temp directory of windows (C:\Windows\Temp) and add IUSR with modify privileges.

Notes

This installation is testing with versions (18/06/2020):

Windows Server 2019
Apache 2.4.41
PHP 7.3.19
MySQL 5.7.29
MediaWiki 1.34.1