In this section, we are going to install Magento 2 on the Windows platform using the XAMPP server. We need to know about the system requirement that is mentioned below:  

System Requirement for Magento 2

• Apache 2.2 or 2.4 
• Download XAMPP 
• PHP 7.0.13 -7.0.x, 7.1.x, 7.2.x 
• MySQL %.6,5.7 
• Browser - Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, or Firefox, etc. 

Step 1: Install XAMPP

• To Download the 7.2.x version, click here. 
• Open and install XAMPP on your Windows 

Install and save it in the drive you wish to keep the file

• Open your XAMPP Control Panel. 
• Click on Apache’s Config and go to PHP (php.ini)

• Search for extension=php_intl.dll, extension=soap, extension=sockets and extension=php_xsl.dll, and remove the semicolon “;” at the beginning from both. 

• Start the Apache and MySQL services from the XAMPP control panel. 

Also, read: How to add Simple & Configurable Products in Magento 2

Step 2: Install Composer (Optional)

• Download Composer and install on Windows 

• Browse XAMPP PHP exe file location to install the composer. 

Step 3: Download Magento 2.3.5 setup from the Magento Official website.

• Extract the Download Magento 2.3.5 archive and rename the extracted folder with the name you wish 
• Copy the renamed folder and past your XAMPP\htdocs location (ex: D:\xampp\htdocs). 

Also, read: 4 Effective ways Small Businesses Can Optimize in Magento 2 Store

Step 4: Install Magento 2 (Run localhost open project - localhost/magento)

• Start Installing (click Start Readiness Check). 

• After click Readiness Check. 

• Click Next and “Add Database” step 2, enter the database details such as server host, username, password, name. 

Add database name you created in localhost phpMyAdmin then click next. 

• In the Web Configuration step, enter the store and Magento admin address. Click Next

• Customize Your Store step, enter the details such as time zone, currency, language, and click Next 

• Create an Account step, configure the username, email, and password. Click Next 

• Finally, for the installation step, click Install Now 

Also, read: Must use Magento 2 extension for additional functionality

Step 5:  However, the process of installation is incomplete and gives an error

Sort the error:

You can replace this function validateURLScheme in File name: \vendor\magento\framework\Image\Adapter\Gd2.php

private function validateURLScheme(string $filename) : bool 
    { 
       $allowed_schemes = [‘ftp’, ‘ftps’, ‘http’, ‘https’];

       $url = parse_url($filename);

       if ($url && isset($url[‘scheme’]) && !in_array($url[‘scheme’], $allowed_schemes) && !file_exists($filename) && strlen($url[‘scheme’]) > 1) { 

       return false;

    } 
    return true;
} 

• And refresh the window and click install.

• A success message will be displayed as below after the successful installation: 

Step 6: Launch the admin panel in the browser

1. Still if you don’t get any display on the admin dashboard:  

1. Change URL validator function on  

/vendor/magento/framework/View/Element/Template/File/Validator.php:113 

protected function isPathInDirectories($path, $directories) 
    { 
        $realPath = str_replace(‘\\’, ‘/’, $this->fileDriver->getRealPath($path)); 

        if (!is_array($directories)) { 

            $directories = (array)$directories;
        } 
        foreach ($directories as $directory) { 

            if (0 === strpos($realPath, $directory)) { 

                return true;
            } 
        } 
        return false;
    } 

2. Refresh page and a dialog box with Magento 2 login screen appear. 

Step 7: Run the Magento Composer Command to remove browser console error and resolve the broken image link. 

• Open Command prompt for running Magento cache clear command.  

• Go to the Mangento project location directory (D:\xampp\htdocs\magento>) 
• php bin/magento setup:upgrade 
• php bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy -f 
• php bin/magento c:c 

Finally, Magento 2 is successfully installed and is ready to operate on Windows localhost.