Server2Go Portable Web Server
What is Server2Go?
“Server2Go is a Webserver that runs out of the box without any installation and on write protected media. This means that web applications based on Server2Go can be used directly from cdrom, a usb stick or from any folder on a hard disk without the hassle of configuring Apache, PHP or MySQL.”
Usage
I find that Server2Go is a much smoother install than XAMPP. XAMPP is what most of the people I spoke to were familiar with as far as a portable web server went. The advantage that Server2Go has over XAMPP seems to be that Server2Go has been designed to run off of write-protected media. It is designed to facilitate localized deployable production apps.
The install for me was as simple as unzipping the files, and running the executable file. I changed several of the variables in php.ini to allow things like CURL. This all worked without incident. I am also able to develop in perl, use MySQL and MySQL Lite, and of course PHP.
The version I choose included: PHP 5.2.10, SQLite, MySQL 5.0.41, Perl 5.8
But also note that they have downgrades for other versions of most of these. I am running everything from a jump drive, with NotePad ++ running via PortableApps. XAMPP would have been a similiar solution in my case, since running via write-protected media is not important for me. I am impressed with Server2Go and I can’t see switching to XAMPP unless I need the install to run on a non-windows box.
Give it a try and see what you think.