I recently installed apache, php, and mysql... or rather I was trying to. Apache was the one part that I am sure I installed correctly (after installing I got the "it works!" screen. Also got it to recognize my file after changing directoryroot). I am new to this so I read many different guides on the internet for configuring php and mysql, but it was not working right. I didnt look at it again for some time and forgot where I left off, so I decided to uninstall everything and start from scratch. I also deleted any of the old directories left behind. Now, after only installing Apache 2.2.8 I am not able to even get the "it works" page. That page will load if i manually click on the file, but http://localhost will not direct me there. Neither will 127.0.0.1

This is all on a windows xp sp2 computer. It is such a breeze to install apache, I just cannot come up with a reason as to why it would not work this time.

Thanks in advance!

Check this out

its a simple install package that does all the hard work for you

http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html

its xampp.

One possibility is if you are using (in httpd.conf)
Listen 127.0.0.1:8080

then http://localhost:8080 or http://127.0.0.1:8080 are needed to see your web site page or the "It works!" message. (Internet Explorer has a problem with the localhost:8080 domain and port 8080 without specifying http protocol in front of it in this version of Windows. One good reason to dump IE!)

I have a two-computer network behind a router, and so I have changed my Listen to my router-assigned IP address in the 192.168.x.x range, using :80 for Port 80.

I further edited my hosts file to create the simple domain name s.s pointing to my 192.168.x.x IP address on both computers.

This lets me serve my page across my home network with a quick typing in the browser address bar.

Larry

Or you could change the listen 8080 to simply 80, so you don't have to add a port number to localhost when typing it.

What exactly happens when you type localhost into your browser?