Right click the downloaded XAMPP file > Extract All...
Right click the downloaded Wordpress .zip file > Extract All...
Make a copy of wordpress/wp-config-sample.php and name it wp-config.php
Cut the wordpress folder inside the XAMPP/htdocs directory
Copy the extracted XAMPP directory to a safe location to run from, C:\Program Files for example
Run XAMPP/setup_xampp.bat to update the configuration files with the new server location
Run XAMPP/xampp-control.exe
Click the Start button next to Apache and MySQL
Navigate to XAMPP/mysql/bin
Hold the SHIFT key and right click in the white space > Open PowerShell windows here...
Type the following in the PowerShell window to setup the WordPress database
./mysql -u root CREATE DATABASE wordpress DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci; GRANT ALL ON wordpress.* TO 'wordpress_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'W0rdPr3ss!!'; FLUSH PRIVILEGES; EXIT;
Open a web browser and navigate to https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/
Copy the response for use shortly
Navigate to XAMPP/htdocs/wordpress and edit wp-config.php with a text editor
Press CTRL+F and search for 'DB_NAME'
Update the database name, username and password
Press CTRL+F and search for 'AUTH_KEY'
Paste the secure secret keys generated earlier, overwriting the template
Save the changes to wp-config.php
Open a web browser and navigate to http://DNSorIP/wordpress
The Wordpress setup screen should be displayed
Select a language > Click Continue
Create a site title and WordPress login > Click Install WordPress
When the installation completes, login with the WordPress credentials created in the previous step
Welcome to your very own, self-hosted WordPress installation