• Registered: 2004-03-04
  • Posts: 5

Topic: Starting a forum with PunBB

Could someone please explain to me in the most simple of terms how, once i've downloaded PunBB, i go about starting my bulletin board. When i say simple, i mean homer simpson simple. I've downloaded PunBB and i'm trying to start my forum. I've downloaded Mysql and PHP like it asked. Now it says to "Run install.php from the forum root directory through your browser".

I was of the understanding that PunBB would help me create a forum. I don't understand how i'm supposed to have a forum root directory when i haven't started it yet.
Please help. I don't mind how much you laugh at the simplicity of this mickey mouse question, but i could really do with some help. cheers.

2 Reply by Paul

  • Paul
  • Senior Member
  • Offline
  • From: Wales, UK.
  • Registered: 2003-08-13
  • Posts: 3,089

Re: Starting a forum with PunBB

The forum root directory is the folder where you put the PunBB files. Lets say for example the directory you are serving your web pages from is C:\apache\www. You would access this in your browser by typing http://localhost. To install punbb you would create a subdirectory for example C:\apache\www\myforum. After you unzip PunBB you should see a folder "upload". Copy all the files and folders from upload to C:\apache\www\myforum. This is now your PunBb root directory. To run the install script you just open your browser and type http://localhost/myforum/install.php.

The above instructions do of course have to be modified if you are running IIS rather than Apache or of course if you are running Linux but I'm sure you get the idea. You also have to create an empty mysql database before running install. You can call the database anything you like. PunBB will create all the necessary tables for you during the install.

  • Registered: 2004-03-04
  • Posts: 5

Re: Starting a forum with PunBB

That's great thanks alot.