How to Install Yii

Prerequisites

Prior to installing Yii, you must configure your application development environment as a web server being able to support PHP 5.1.0 or above. Yii has been tested with Apache HTTP server on Windows and Linux operating system. My own application development environment runs on Windows 7 64-bit. I installed Apache HTTP server and MySQL server using XAMPP for Windows. 

*Note: Avoid installing Skype in your web application development environment, this will conflict with the port (port 80) that Apache uses and Skype uses for incoming connections. If Skype is needed, just go to Skype top-menu>Tools>Options>Advance>Connections and uncheck the box “Use port 80 and 443 as alternatives for incoming connections" 

Basic Yii installation is very easy. Just follow these basic steps:

1. Download the latest version of the Yii framework from http://www.yiiframework.com/download/.
2. Unpack the downloaded file to your web root folder (Ex. In XAMPP, its C:\XAMPP\htdocs\yii).

You should see the following high level directories and files:

• CHANGELOG
• LICENSE
• README
• UPGRADE
• demos/
• framework/
• requirements/

Now that the framework has been unpacked, it is advised that you check and verify if your environment satisfies all the requirements of using Yii. Simply point your browser to the index.php script under the requirements folder. It may look like this:

http://localhost/yii/requirements/index.php

See the screenshot of my results below:

As long as there is no Failed result, then you have successfully installed Yii.

Happy Days!!!!