The XAMPP package contains all of the components necessary to run a web server capable of hosting a WordPress website on your computer. These components include:

• Apache web server
• PHP interpreter
• MySQL database server
• phpMyAdmin database management interface

The XAMPP package also includes other components, which are not required to run a local WordPress development site.

Once XAMPP is installed and started, the keyword localhost that we type in the web browser is recognized by the operating system as a request to communicate with the web server on the local computer and the Apache web server displays the welcome page from its documentation.

The XAMPP documentation is a set of flat HTML files located in the c:\xampp\htdocs directory on the Windows platform. This is the web server's default working directory.

The last few steps of the recipe instruct the Apache web server to look for the local website's content in a new directory. This is a safety precaution to be sure that site files are not deleted inadvertently if XAMPP is uninstalled. It can also help in managing multiple sites on a single computer.