FMS11 + WAMP + Win7 + Joomla! = one hot mess...

[kivetros]

Hello, FMForums community. I am completely new to FileMaker, and learning FileMaker just became the cornerstone of my career, so you guys probably aren't getting rid of me anytime soon.

Let me explain. I'm a college student (computer science major) that managed to land a job as a systems administrator at a small business. The owner is a close family friend. Since I had proven my usefulness to him on several occasions by keeping the shop's computers up and going whenever there was a problem, when he heard that I have problems at my job, he decided to (finally) take me on-board and let me work for him.

Our company buys and sells plastic injection molding machinery and parts, and we have been using FileMaker since the Nutshell days. The owner used to develop and maintain our database, but these days he is so busy with every other aspect of running the company that he doesn't have time to work on the database anymore. That's where I come in - he wants me to learn FileMaker.

My first major project is going to be getting parts of our database to dynamically display on our website using FileMaker's PHP API. I want to use Joomla! as a CMS, and that's where things are getting kinda sticky. I'm installing all this software on my workstation (running Windows 7 Ultimate x64) for testing purposes - there are no 'servers' involved, per se, at this point.

At first, I installed FMS11, and it worked fine. Then, I tried to install Joomla!, and every time, something just wouldn't work - usually something involving the SQL server. Well, to simplify things, I decided to install WAMP. WAMP refused to work properly, for reasons that I can't remember (but that I know involved MySQL).

I decided to uninstall FMS11, to see if that would make a difference; lo and behold, WAMP ran great and Joomla! installed. This morning, I tried installing FMS11 again; it installed without incident, but now when I try to run the Admin Console, I get the

"The Database Server is not available. To edit server deployment, please start the Database Server first."

error.

I'm completely new to all of this - Joomla! (and CMSes in general), PHP, FileMaker, and FileMaker Server, and I have no idea what my next move needs to be. Is it even possible to run Joomla! and FMS11 on the same machine? If not, what do I need to do next?

A side note: When I installed FMS11, I had IIS 7.0 enabled. WAMP and IIS weren't playing nicely, so I disabled IIS. As it turns out, it was because they were both trying to use localhost:80. I enabled IIS this morning and changed the default port to localhost:90, so now IIS and WAMP will run side-by-side. I don't know if this has anything to do with this whole mess.

Thanks to anyone who actually read this whole thing. I appreciate any help or advice.

-K

EDIT: Since the FMS11 installation is more mission-critical than anything else right now, I uninstalled WAMP, set IIS localhost back to port 80, and re-installed FMS11 again... and still that stupid error message. I have no idea what to make of this.

EDIT EDIT: So I did a System Restore back to a few days ago, when FMS11 was still working. Nothing. Then, I disconnected from the network, and what do you know? FMS11 started. I have no idea why, as my workstation is the only computer in the building that's running FMS11. I still have no idea what's going on.

Edited September 24, 2010 by Guest