Installing local copy on PC -- will this affect anything else?

I've read through the doc regarding setting up a local copy on the PC for development & testing. I have question about this: A prerequisite is to configure the local PC as a PHP/Apache/MySQL server.

Can I do this without impacting anything else on my PC? Our current store runs from this PC, as well as our accounting software and other things. I'm assuming that I can configure my PC as described without negatively impacting anything else - but thought I'd better confirm first.

You said you run current store in your PC? do you mean your PC is the server?

You can store local copy in a sub folder of the website and having a copy of the database for testing purpose, it shouldn't disturb other things.

No, I didn't word that right. My current store is pc-based as far as maintenance. Everything is done on the PC (the master resides on my computer), then ftp'd to my server. When orders are placed, they are downloaded to my PC, inventory updated, then updates are ftp'd back to the server.

I got nervous when I read the zen doc to "configure you pc".

There should be no problem setting up ZC on your local machine, but your zencart store, residing on a remote server, will not be able to "interface" with your PC in the manner your current software appears to do - - - unless you do a lot of custom coding to have the remote server send you stuff off the database in formats that your current local machine's software can recognise and manage.

But don't think that a full local copy interacts seamlessly with a remote copy...

To get the interaction you want may require considerable additional programming, and it's impossible for anyone on this forum to give you pointers until we know:-

• WHAT software you currently use to manage your current store (both on the local as well as remote machines)
• WHAT systems you use to generate reports (cron, perhaps) that FTP the data back to your local drive.
• ETC...

Thank you. I want to move away from the PC-based maintenance, so I'm not looking for that interactioin. I sell digital products, and it's too much space for my PC. There are other reasons I want to move to web-based development and maintenance as well. I just wanted to make sure I could install that local test copy without jeopardizing the other applications running on my PC.

Thanks for your help!