Mark Althoff – Developer Blog

• Download the most recent version at the zend framework download page
• unzip the package to any location you want (e.g. c:\frameworks)
• if you have xampp installed you already have a version of zend framework available under \xampp\php\PEAR\Zend. Best would be to just delete all the files in there and copy the content of the library folder from your fresh Zend Framework installation into the folder. Also overwrite the zf.bat und zf.php in D:\xampp\php with the new once in the bin folder of your Zend Framework installation. Now you can skip the next two steps
• find the ‘bin’ folder containing zf.bat and add the path to your path variable in windows
• edit your php.ini in your PHP installation. (e.g.: c:/xampp/php/) and add the path of the ‘library’ folder of the zend framework to the includepath. (Search the php.ini for includepath until you find something like that: include_path = “.;c:\xampp\php\PEAR” and just add path to the library folder)
• add the folder of your php installation that includes php.exe to your windows path like you did before with the bin folder of zend framework
• now open a command line window (execute – ‘cmd’), navigate to a folder where you want your project to reside in and type:
  “zf.bat create projectname” (replace projectname with any name you want)
• edit the file hosts in (C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc/). If you cannot see the etc folder in drivers just type in the path, it’s sometimes hidden. If hosts is not editable or saveable start your editor in administrator mode and make sure no other program uses that file. Enter the following:
  127.0.0.1 quickstart.local (that defines a host that routes the url quickstart.local to 127.0.0.1(also known as localhost). You can chose whatever name you want, e.g. dev.projectname but make sure to reflect the change in the next step.
• open your httpd.conf file in your apache config folder (e.g. ‘d:/xampp/apache/conf/’) and search for the term virtualhost and enter somewhere below:
  <VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName quickstart.local
  DocumentRoot D:/4INLOOP/PHP/zend/quickstart/public
  SetEnv APPLICATION_ENV “development”
  <Directory D:/4INLOOP/PHP/zend/quickstart/public>
  DirectoryIndex index.php
  AllowOverride All
  Order allow,deny
  Allow from all
  </Directory>
  </VirtualHost>
  Servername needs to be the same like in hosts. Document root needs to point to the public folder of your new Zend framework installation.

If you now start your apache you should be up and running. Open your browser and type in quickstart.local.

If this description was too short the manual from Zend is good stuff.