Thanks to the three of you.
As I found ways to make it work, I have analyzed a bit the situation, so it may help you to solve the problems that can be solved.
I tried WAMP to see if there are any differences. Once I configured it successfully, I got to the same problem: system stalls at "About to create tables"... I also got the same behaviour with both servers, so my comments down here equally apply to both XAMPP and WAMP.
I then tried Fretzl's solution and it works, both on WAMP and on XAMPP. Still wondering what happens, I decided to dig into "security-logger.php" to see where is the problem.
Turns out that setup works to a point if I comment out line 33 of the "security-logger.php" file:
`zp_register_filter('log_setup','security_logger::log_setup');`
So maybe something could be done there and it would solve the Windows IIs problem Fretzl was talking about.
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A second interesting problem is that once the setup is complete, I get the warning:
"NOTE: We strongly recommend you remove the setup scripts from your zp-core folder at this time. You can always re-upload them should you find you need them again in the future." But there is no "Delete setup files" button.
Process seems to stall at line 2368 of setup.php at:
`
if (zpFunctions::hasPrimaryScripts())...
`
If I remove the function from the IF (if (0 == 0), it's OK.
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Two other bugs:
One is mind-buggling but minor: when present, the plugin "cloneZenphoto" prevents all plugins further down from being loaded. I.e. the list of plugins starts at "a" and stops at "class-WEBdocs". Once I completely removed "cloneZenphoto" (file and folder) from zp-extensions folders, it worked.
One is a bit more stressful: only one theme is loaded. The Setup log tells me that the theme default options for all of them have been set, but the "Themes" administrative tab shows only the FIRST theme (default). If I remove it, then it becomes Effervescence plus and so on...
So there must be an improperly initialized variable... either in Zenphoto or on my server.
(Back 1 or 2 years ago, when I had successfully installed Zenphoto on XAMPP, I think I saw all themes.)
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A final problem is that mod_rewrite doesn't seem to work properly.
With mod_rewrite ON, I can visit only the main page, but not subalbums and images. For instance, from http://mg.localhost/photos/, when I click on the first album, it says:
`
The Zenphoto object you are requesting cannot be found:
album: g.localhost/photos/essaiphotos
(the path displayed seems good,
except for the missing "m" at the beginning)
`
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P.S. One advantage I find with XAMPP over WAMP is that it is also available in a portable version, so I can develop the same installation – with databases – on different machines if necessary.