How to Install Omeka S on Windows 11

Omeka S is a web application that helps you manage digital collections and create exhibits for your website. In this tutorial, we will walk you through the steps of installing Omeka S on a Windows 11 PC.

Prerequisites

Before we start the installation process, make sure you have the following software installed on your computer:

  • XAMPP – an easy-to-install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP, and Perl.

Step-by-Step Guide

  1. Download the latest version of Omeka S from https://omeka.org/s/. Once you have downloaded the ZIP file, extract the contents to a directory of your choice, e.g. C:\OmekaS.

  2. Open your XAMPP installation directory and navigate to the apache directory. Open the conf directory and edit the httpd.conf file using a text editor such as Notepad.

  3. Find the line that reads #LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so and remove the # at the beginning of the line to uncomment it. Save the file and close the text editor.

  4. Open the XAMPP Control Panel and start Apache and MySQL services.

  5. Open your web browser and type localhost/phpmyadmin/ into the address bar. This will take you to the phpMyAdmin dashboard.

  6. Create a new database by clicking on the New button and entering a name for the database, e.g. omeka_s.

  7. Click on the newly created database to open it, and then click on the Import tab. Select the Omeka S database dump file that is located in the db folder of the Omeka S directory.

  8. Once the database has been imported successfully, go to the config folder inside the Omeka S directory and locate the config.local.php.dist file. Copy this file and rename the copy to config.local.php.

  9. Open config.local.php in a text editor and enter your database credentials in the appropriate fields, e.g.

return [
    'db' => [
        'driver' => 'pdo_mysql',
        'hostname' => 'localhost',
        'port' => '3306',
        'database' => 'omeka_s',
        'username' => 'root',
        'password' => '',
        'charset' => 'utf8mb4',
        'collation' => 'utf8mb4_unicode_ci',
        'prefix' => '',
    ],
];

Replace the values in this configuration array with the correct values for your database.

  1. Next, open the config/database.ini file and modify the configuration to match your database credentials, e.g.
driver = "pdo_mysql"
host = "localhost"
port = "3306"
username = "root"
password = ""
dbname = "omeka_s"

  1. Save and close both config.local.php and database.ini.

  2. Open your web browser and navigate to http://localhost/OmekaS/ (assuming you extracted the Omeka S files to a folder named OmekaS in the root of your htdocs folder). You should see the Omeka S installation page.

  3. Follow the installation wizard by entering your site information, creating an administrative account, and selecting your desired settings.

  4. Once the installation is complete, you can access the Omeka S dashboard by navigating to http://localhost/OmekaS/admin.

Conclusion

That's it! You have successfully installed Omeka S on your Windows 11 PC. From here, you can start creating collections and exhibits for your website. Good luck!