@johnmaher You’re not explaining your problem very well, but I think I get the gist of it.
Basically, you have an XAMPP install up and running, and you have put WordPress into the htdocs folder, using a subfolder of “WordPress/johnm5.sgedu.site/public_html/” or something similar.
You also copied your existing site’s database over to the local MySQL install and pointed the local copy of WordPress at that.
Now you’re having a permalink problem. The basic issue is that your local site is not where it thinks it is supposed to be anymore.
Basically, your site is configured to be at http://johnm5.sgedu.site/, but it really is at http://localhost/Wordpress/johnm5.sgedu.site/public_html/ .
See, WordPress knows its own URL, because that is something you configure it to know. Specifically, you set that on the Settings->General screen. In this case though, you copied an existing database to your local one, and now it doesn’t work because the local database still thinks it is on the other URL, which it is not.
So, change the URL on Settings->General to the correct URL. Those Site URL and Home fields aren’t what you think they are. You don’t put in the URL you want the site to be at in them, instead you have to put in what the URL actually is.
Use the information in this article to change those values to the correct ones:
My advice would also be to move the WordPress files out of the c:xampphtdocsWordpressjohnm5.sgedu.sitepublic_html folder and up to something a bit more manageable, while you’re at it. I use XAMPP myself for local development, and I tend to put my WP installs at a simpler path. c:xampphtdocstestsite or c:xampphtdocswptrunk and such. Easier to use those URLs.
Also, when you’re not explaining what the problem is, then other people aren’t likely to understand it either and thus cannot give the best advice. so, if you get bad advice, then sometimes, that’s on you, not on the person trying to help you.
