Thought of writing a small tutorial on how to install NGINX and PHP on Windows. You can also use this as a reference if you wanted to install them on Windows Server too.

Setting up NGINX

1. Download NGINX for Windows
2. Go to C:/ directory and create a folder named C:/nginx.
3. Unzip the downloaded .zip file in C:/nginx directory.
4. Go to C:/nginx and create two new folders named sites-available and sites-enabled.
5. To test, if it's working, double-click on C:/nginx/nginx.exe and type localhost in the browser. You should be able to see a Welcome page.
6. Kill the NGINX process from Task Manager.

Setting up PHP

1. Download PHP 8.1 for Windows.
2. Go to C:/ directory and create a folder named C:/php or if you wanted to have multiple versions, C:/php8.1.
3. Unzip the downloaded .zip file in C:/php directory.
4. Add PHP to your system environment variables by adding the path C:/php
5. Open Command Prompt and type php -v. You see should be able to see the version if it's installed correctly.

Run NGINX and PHP as separate services

Generally, it's good practice to run both PHP and NGINX as background services or else, you might have to start the processes manually every time the server goes down.

As I was looking for a way to do that, I stumbled upon this post on StackOverflow and it was quite helpful.

Install NSSM Service Manager

NSSM Service Manager is a free open-source alternative that helps you create a service with the help of GUI. Below are the steps that I followed:

1. Download NSSM Service Manager
2. Go to C:/ directory and create a folder named C:/nssm.
3. Unzip the downloaded .zip file in C:/nssm directory.

Install NGINX as a service

1. Open Command Prompt as an Administrator.
2. Go to C:/nssm/win64/ directory.
3. Type nssm install nginx
4. Define the path of the nginx.exe file.
5. Click on Install Service.
6. Press Win+R and type services.msc.
7. Look for nginx and start the service.
8. Open your browser and type localhost to see if it's working correctly.

Install PHP as a service

1. Open Command Prompt as an Administrator.
2. Go to C:/nssm/win64/ directory.
3. Type nssm install php
4. Define the path of the php-cgi.exe file.
5. Add the arguments: -b 127.0.0.1:9000
6. Click on Install Service.
7. Press Win+R and type services.msc.
8. Look for php and start the service.

Test to see if it works!

Before you proceed with the following steps, ensure that you include the *.conf files from the sites-enabled folder in your nginx.conf file.

Add the line include "C:/nginx/sites-enabled/*.conf"; in your nginx.conf file and follow the steps below:

1. Go to C:/nginx/sites-available directory and create example.com.conf.
2. Go to C:/nginx/html and create directory.
3. Refer to the sample configuration provided and make the necessary changes.
4. To enable the site, you have to create a symlink: mklink "C:\nginx\sites-available\example.com.conf" "C:\nginx\sites-enabled\example.com.conf".
5. Ensure the configuration doesn't have any errors by typing nginx -t in C:/nginx directory.
6. Restart the NSSM service.
7. Add an entry in your hosts file: 127.0.0.1 example.com.
8. And you're done!

Useful commands while using NSSM

# Start a service
nssm start "servicename" 

# Restart a service
nssm restart "servicename" 

# Stop a service
nssm stop "servicename" 

# Install a service
nssm install "servicename" 

# Remove/Uninstall a service
nssm remove "servicename" 

Sample NGINX Virtual Host Configuration

server {

    # Your Domain Name
    listen 80;
    server_name example.com;

    autoindex off;
    add_header X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN";
    add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains" always;
    add_header X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff";
    add_header X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block";
    add_header Access-Control-Allow-Origin *;

    if (!-e $request_filename) {
        rewrite  ^/[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+(/wp-(content|admin|includes).*) $1 break;
        rewrite  ^/[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+(/.*\.php)$ $1 break;
    }

    # Uncomment these lines if SSL is provided
    #==========================
    #listen 443 ssl;
    #ssl_certificate your-ssl.pem;
    #ssl_certificate_key your-ssl.key;
    #ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2; 
    #ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
    #ssl_ciphers 'EECDH+AESGCM:EDH+AESGCM:AES256+EECDH:AES256+EDH';
    #==========================

    # Log files for Debugging
    access_log logs/example-access.log;
    error_log logs/example-error.log;

    # Directory
    root "C:/nginx/html/example.com";
    index index.php index.html index.htm;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
    }

    location ~ /\.(?!well-known).* {
        deny all;
        access_log off;
        log_not_found off;
    }

    # Deny yaml, twig, markdown, ini file access
    location ~* /.+\.(markdown|md|twig|yaml|yml|ini)$ {
        deny all;
        access_log off;
        log_not_found off;
    }

    # PHP-FPM Configuration Nginx
    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9000;
        fastcgi_index  index.php;
        fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include        fastcgi_params;
    }
}

Conclusion

If you've gotten this far, give yourself a pat in the back.

Hope you've found this tutorial useful and please share it with your friends and colleagues if they really need it!