If you are using Mac or Windows, Acquia Dev Desktop is the easiest method to develop Drupal:
Visit https://www.acquia.com/downloads and download the installer you need.
Open the
Acquia Dev Desktopfile and start the installation process. If you are a Windows user, find the folder that you used to save your Acquia Dev Desktop download and double-click on the.exeinstallation file.If you are a Mac user, find the folder that you used to save your Acquia Dev Desktop download. Move the file to the
Applicationfolder and double-click on the.dmginstallation file. A new folder will pop up, with an icon that says Acquia Dev Desktop Stack Installer. Go ahead and click on that. Allow the installer to run on your Mac or PC.
Let the installer run and click on Next for every step once you have read and agreed to the terms and conditions. Next, you can select where you are going to install the application stack (Apache, MySQL, and PHP) and where you are going to install your first Drupal site.
During this installation, we won't use our Drupal site directly but in other chapters, if you decide to use Dev Desktop for development work, you can import sites from other locations on your hard drive as well. Leave these at the default and click on Next. On the next page, you have to select the port number for Apache and MySQL. In most cases, it will work without any conflict, but if you are using multiple AMP stacks, you can go ahead and make the changes.
On the next screen, we set the defaults for our first Drupal site. Fill this out and click on Next. Make sure you note down the username and password. You will need this to log in to your Drupal site.
Creating credentials for the first Drupal site
Click on Next to begin the installation process. Once the installation is complete, click on Finish, and this will open up the Acquia Dev Desktop Control Panel.
Acquia Dev Desktop Control Panel
Go to your new site by clicking on Go to my site. Use Manage my database to browse to PHPMyAdmin.
Login page for setting up the site
You have installed Drupal using Acquia Dev Desktop. From here, you can begin working on your new Drupal site.
Note that the site is running using Acquia Drupal, which is little different in that you would download from your https://www.drupal.org/. Installing Acquia Dev Desktop on Windows is almost similar.