I always just install WAMP on my machine: http://www.wampserver.com/en/
Comes with Apache, MySQL, and PHP / phpMyAdmin already built right in. Basically it gives your PC the ability to act like a server.
Just a heads up though you’ll need like every Microsoft Visual C++ package from like 2008 on if you don’t have them already installed, but check out this link for more info on all that: http://forum.wampserver.com/read.php?2,138295
You can find all the Visual C++ packages here along with a checker program to see if you have them installed already: http://wampserver.aviatechno.net/?lang=en&prerequis=afficher
Another plus to WAMP is you can download and install other versions of PHP and switch back and forth between them depending on what you’re working on and if it needs a specific version.