'php artisan serve' won't work. tried multiple solutions

Question

I issued 'composer create-project laravel/laravel first-projec'

after creating a new laravel project I cd'd into the project directory and ran 'php artisan serve'

the console prompted the following error:

Warning: require(C:\xampp\htdocs\first-projec\public/../vendor/autoload.php): Failed to open stream: No such file or directory in C:\xampp\htdocs\first-projec\public\index.php on line 34

Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Failed opening required 'C:\xampp\htdocs\first-projec\public/../vendor/autoload.php' (include_path='C:\xampp\php\PEAR') in C:\xampp\htdocs\first-projec\public\index.php:34 Stack trace: #0 {main} thrown in C:\xampp\htdocs\first-projec\public\index.php on line 34

I've tried a couple of solutions with no resolution:

• run composer install: this results in a further problem 'composer.lock doesn't exist'
• php -S 127.0.0.1:8000 -t public/: it says 'Development Server (http://127.0.0.1:8000) started' but generates the same error once make a GET request

it has to do with the /vendor/autoload.php file and I couldn't figure it out

Answer 1

I initially downloaded PHP manually through the official website (php.net), extracted the folder, added it to the Program Files directory, and created the required environmental variables.

I Also installed Composer through the Composer Installer.

the steps above might have caused some obscure problem that I'm not aware of.

how I solved the problem:

• deleted the PHP folder.
• uninstalled composer.
• downloaded xampp: so PHP would be installed properly unlike the way I did it.
• removed the old env variable and added a new one with the new location.
• installed composer.

now everything is working properly.