[HOWTO] Setup step debugging PHP in Netbeans on Windows with XAMPP

I am using Netbeans 6.9.1 on Windows 7 with XAMPP 1.7.4 installed. I wanted to enable step debugging for PHP like I do in my PC with Fedora (see here for Netbeans PHP step debugging for Fedora). To do that, I had to follow the following steps:

Edit the php.ini file (xampp\php\php.ini) in a text editor to uncomment (remove leading semicolon 😉 the following lines:

zend_extension = "D:\xampp\php\ext\php_xdebug.dll"
xdebug.remote_handler = "dbgp"
xdebug.remote_host = "localhost"
xdebug.remote_port = 9000

Also, search for the line containing “xdebug.remote_enable” and change it to:

xdebug.remote_enable = On

Then restart apache service.

Now, open the file Program Files\NetBeans 6.9.1\etc\netbeans.conf and find the line containing “netbeans_default_options”. Add the text “-J-Dorg.netbeans.modules.php.dbgp.level=400” at the end of the line so that it looks like the following:

netbeans_default_options="-J-client -J-Xss2m -J-Xms32m -J-XX:PermSize=32m -J-XX:MaxPermSize=200m -J-Dapple.laf.useScreenMenuBar=true -J-Dapple.awt.graphics.UseQuartz=true -J-Dsun.java2d.noddraw=true -J-Dorg.netbeans.modules.php.dbgp.level=400"

Now, restart Netbeans and select Debug>Debug Project. However, I have experienced it is very slow on Windows compared to the installation on Fedora.

Hope this helps.