I am looking to move a website (that I did not code) from one host to another. I want to get the site running on my local machine before the move so there is little to no conflict. I am using a fresh install of xampp, have copied all of the files from the public_html folder on the live site to xampp's htdocs folder, and imported the sites DBs with phpmyadmin.

At first http://localhost would prompt me to download a file 'localhost' instead of reading the index.php page, but this was solved by removing the .htaccess file. That may have been the wrong fix (please advise) but at least now the browser is attempting to display the index.php. Unfortunately, the page does not load... it only displays warnings and errors.

Can anyone give me some advice or reference material on getting this site running? I'm sure a number of things could be causing these problems, but to me (with very little experience) maintaining the directory structure/datbases should have this site working.

Perhaps there are sql permissions I do not have set correctly (I havent made any modifications since installing xampp)?

Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

all depends on what warnings and errors you get.

Well, I did manage to get the main (index.php) page to load correctly (The problem was a mysql permission) , but none of the links from the main page work... nor does typing in the url to a specific page (404 errors). Hopefully I will be able to trace through the code enough to figure that out (does anyone have any tools/programs they recommend for this?) The .htaccess is still removed and will still prompt to download file 'localhost' if it is replaced. (does anyone know why this is?)

Thanks!

when you have xampp on your home computer your going to have root access and therefore your databases won't have your username before them (user_database)

I know you've copied your database, but look for a file called config.php or something of the like. Usually this will hold the connection information to a database. Make sure all info is correct, and retry.

Maybe you can post what was contained within the .htaccess file?

but none of the links from the main page work... nor does typing in the url to a specific page (404 errors).

Sounds like you may be fairly new to xampp. There could be a couple of different reasons why you are have a problem with the links. The initial coder may have used full URLs for the links (domain.com/page) and not used ./page or ../page.

If the page is in the htdocs folder and not in the database simply typing localhost/foldername/pagename should allow you to view it.

Also review the info posted above about DB names, usernames and passwords when running on localhost.