Install PHP on XP / IIS 5.1?

Question

I am trying to install PHP onto my development box (XP SP3 / IIS 5.1) I've got PHP 5.2.6 stable downloaded (the MSI installer package) and I am getting an error "Cannot find httpd.conf". After that the install seems to breeze by quickly (more quickly than I would have expected) and when I try to execute a simple PHP script from my localhost test directory that I created, I get a slew of missing DLL errors. I have seen posts out there which indicate that its possible and has been done. I dont see any bug reports for this MSI at PHP.NET support. Any ideas?

Answer 1

I'll see if I can remember it correctly:

1. Unzip PHP zip file into c:\Program Files\php (or run the installer)
2. Copy php5ts.dll into c:\windows\system32
3. Copy php.ini.dist into c:\windows and rename it to php.ini
4. Edit c:\windows\php.ini and look for extension dir - make it point to c:\Program Files\php\extensions (or wherever you put it)
5. This is where my memory gets fuzzy: Edit your IIS application settings, add a script map for .php files, and set the executable to php5ts.dll
6. Profit!?!??!?!

Answer 2

Probably the installer didn't configure your server to use PHP properly. Check out Microsoft's page on enabling PHP on IIS or alternatively switch to Apache if that's a viable option.

Answer 3

Not sure if you already have this but I use WAMP from http://www.wampserver.com/en

It's easy and simple to set up, it has an icon in the system tray to show that its active and you can make it go online or available to the outside by clicking the icon and setting it. I used this when I was first learning PHP since it has everything in one, no need to setup any other service like IIS.