How to configure PHP 8 in WAMP Server for windows

Hello folks, I know it’s a bit late but I realize that this should be helpful for someone. So today we are going to learn how to configure PHP 8 in the windows wamp server.
PHP 8 version is already been launched and you as a tech artisan want to put your hands on a new journey of the version. You may be thinking about how to configure it in my wamp server.

As I personally know that if you are using windows wamp then you can easily switch PHP versions so it very uses full for a run some older projects which were using an older version of PHP.

So before we start configuration we must know the basic requirement of php8.

Once you are ready with installation then we are ready to configure PHP8.

Download the PHP8 version by clicking this link for windows. Select the x64 Thread Safe version if you have 64bit Windows. Right now PHP 8.0.6 is available so I downloaded that one.

Goto your WAMP directory, (generally C:/wamp) but I had installed it in D:/ drive so my path is D:/wamp. Now go to D:/wamp/bin/php and create a new folder named “php8.0.6″ and extract here the downloaded PHP .zip file.

Now, go to the old PHP folder ( D:/wamp/bin/php/php7.2.33). (mine is php7.2.33), and copy wampserver.conf from old and paste it to your “php8.0.6″ D:/wamp/bin/php/php8.0.6) directory.

Now, go to D:/wamp/bin/php/php8.0.6 directory and find file php.ini-development. Copy it and rename it to php.ini in the same directory. Make sure you set the current path in extension_dir
next, open that php.ini file and update the following values:

extension_dir = D:/wamp/bin/php/php8.0.6/ext
upload_tmp_dir = D:/wamp/tmp
error_log = D:/wamp64/logs/php_error.log

Now, scroll down to extension list and choose the extensions which will nessesory and usefull for your projetcs. mostly are there but you only have to uncomment. i needed following :

extension=bz2
extension=curl
extension=fileinfo
extension=gd
extension=gettext
extension=gmp
extension=intl
extension=imap
extension=ldap
extension=mbstring
extension=exif ; Must be after mbstring as it depends on it
extension=mysqli
extension=openssl
extension=pdo_mysql
extension=pdo_sqlite
extension=snmp
extension=soap
extension=sockets
extension=xsl

Save and close the file.

Next, create a duplicate of php.ini file and rename it as phpForApache.ini. This file used by the Apache webserver.

Now open wampserver.conf copied in D:/wamp/bin/php/php8.0.6/ directory in Step 3 above. make the changes in it so that it should look like the following:

Note : Here the LoadModuleName for PHP 8 is php_module and LoadModuleFile for PHP 8 is php8apache2_4.dll

now re-start WAMP server and go to PHP > PHP Version and there you will find version 8.0.6 and select it.

You can see that the PHP version is now updated to PHP 8 in PHP Info from localhost in any browser.

It is recommended to include the new path in your system path directory otherwise you may face some issues with your CURL extension.
navigate to Windows environment variable window and edit system variable “Path” to add a new string “D:\wamp\bin\php\php8.0.6;”.
This step will resolve the CURL error “Unable to load dynamic library ‘php_curl.dll’ – The specified module could not be found in Unknown on line 0”

Now Enjoy Codding journey with PHP8. I hope this will help.