EssEtch

Each WP install is counted as a database in its own right. Your first install is one database, and as you can imagine, the mySQL part of the XAMPP will allow more than one. All you have to remember is that each installation needs a different name and cannot be called ‘wordpress’.

I am sure by now you are quite familiar with XAMPP, and have figured out that all one needs to do is to log into the phpMyAdmin area and start a new database. Give it a unique name and install a new copy of wordpress. Rinse & repeat.

You can run more than one blog on your local host. The advantages are:

– Experiment without messing up your actual site.
– Keep working despite a slow or zero internet connection.
– Bring your blog to a comfort zone of a few well written posts before you can make it public.
– Always have a sort of a mirror site or back-up.

Parting shot: Do remember to read and act upon the security settings advice for XAMPP. The readme file has it all.

Good luck!

It’s been a while after your post. I am sure you are out of the woods. I am writing this only for the sake of completion.
Here is a quote from the XAMPP readme file:

After changing the password you’ll have to reconfigure phpMyAdmin to use the new password, otherwise it won’t be able to access the databases. To do that, open the file config.inc.php in \XAMPPlite\phpmyadmin\ and edit the following lines:

$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘user’] = ‘root’; // MySQL User
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘auth_type’] = ‘http’; // HTTP authentification

This will let you go into the WP admin area successfully.

However, to access your site directly by typing https://localhost/wordpress/ (I am presuming that you chose the database name as ‘wordpress’), you may still get an error. For this:

Open the wp_config.php file in the ‘wordpress’ directory. Check out the following lines:

// ** MySQL settings ** //
define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘wordpress’); // The name of the database
define(‘DB_USER’, ‘root’); // Your MySQL username
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ”); // …and password
define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’); // 99% chance you won’t need to change this value
define(‘DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8’);
define(‘DB_COLLATE’, ”);

Add the password accordingly. Leave the user-name as it is. This is “admin” by default. You may have set a new one in the settings areas of your WP install.

Hope this helps all.
-SH