Setting Up Virtual Hosts for XAMPP

Ref: http://sawmac.com/xampp/virtualhosts/

Launch Notepad and open the hosts file located at C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts. (You may not be able to see the windows folder–some files are hidden by default under Windows. Here are instructions to make those files visible.) On Vista, you’ll also need to have access to change the hosts file. To do that, launch Notepad by right clicking on Notepad from the Start menu and choosing "Run As Administrator." This will give you permission to edit and save the file.

At the end of that file type:
127.0.0.1      clientA.local
127.0.0.1 is how a computer refers to itself—it’s an IP address that points back to the computer, kind of like a computer’s way of saying "ME." The second part (clientA.local) is the "domain" of the virtual host. To visit this domain in a Web browser you’d type http://clientA.local. You don’t have to add the .local part to the hosts files—you could just as easily add 127.0.0.1 clientA and access the site in your Web browser with http://clientA—but I find it helpful for differentiating between a real Web site out on the Internet like clientA.com, and the test sites I have running on my own computer.

Save and close the hosts file. That finishes the first part of this task. You’ve prepared your computer to handle requests to http://clientA.local. Now you need to tell the Web server, Apache, how to handle those requests.

In Notepad open the Apache configuration file located at C:\xampp\apache\conf\extra\httpd-vhosts.conf

At the bottom of that file add:

NameVirtualHost *
  <VirtualHost *>
    DocumentRoot "C:\xampp\htdocs"
    ServerName localhost
  </VirtualHost>
  <VirtualHost *>
    DocumentRoot "C:\Documents and Settings\Me\My Documents\clientA\website"
    ServerName clientA.local
  <Directory "C:\Documents and Settings\Me\My Documents\clientA\website">
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>
  

  

The first five lines of code turn on the Virtual Host feature on Apache, and set up the C:\xampp\htdocs folder as the default location for http://localhost. That’s important since you need to be able to access the XAMPP web pages at http://localhost/ so that you can use PHPMyAdmin.
The stuff in yellow represents a single Virtual Host. You’ll add one chunk of code just like this for each Virtual Host (or Web site) on your computer
You’ll need to modify the stuff highlighted in blue. The first item — DocumentRoot — indicates where the files for this site are located on your computer. The second part–ServerName — is the name you provided in step 2 above: the virtual host name. For example, clientA.local. The third item — the part — is the same path you provided for the DocumentRoot. This is required to let your Web browser have clearance to access these files.

Save and close the Apache configuration file, and restart Apache from the XAMPP control panel.

Start a Web browser and type a URL for the virtual host. For example: http://clientA.local/.
You should now see the home page for your site.