Installation on Windows systems
Installing PHP on modern Microsoft Windows systems and recommended configuration with common web servers.
The Official releases of PHP on Windows are recommended for production use. However, you are welcome to build PHP from Source. You will need a Visual Studio environment. See » Step by Step Build Instructions.
User Contributed Notes 12 notes
If you make changes to your PHP.ini file, consider the following.
(I’m running IIS5 on W2K server. I don’t know about 2K3)
PHP will not «take» the changes until the webserver is restarted, and that doesn’t mean through the MMC. Usually folks just reboot. But you can also use the following commands, for a much faster «turnaround». At a command line prompt, type:
and that will stop the webserver service. Then type:
and that will start the webserver service again. MUCH faster than a reboot, and you can check your changes faster as a result with the old:
I wish I could remember where I read this tip; it isn’t anything I came up with.
You can have multiple versions of PHP running on the same Apache server. I have seen many different solutions pointing at achieving this, but most of them required installing additional instances of Apache, redirecting ports/hosts, etc., which was not satisfying for me.
Finally, I have come up with the simplest solution I’ve seen so far, limited to reconfiguring Apache’s httpd.conf.
My goal is to have PHP5 as the default scripting language for .php files in my DocumentRoot (which is in my case d:/htdocs), and PHP4 for specified DocumentRoot subdirectories.
Here it is (Apache’s httpd.conf contents):
—————————
# replace with your PHP4 directory
ScriptAlias /php4/ «c:/usr/php4/»
# replace with your PHP5 directory
ScriptAlias /php5/ «c:/usr/php5/»
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
Action application/x-httpd-php «/php5/php-cgi.exe»
# populate this for every directory with PHP4 code
Action application/x-httpd-php «/php4/php.exe»
# directory where your PHP4 php.ini file is located at
SetEnv PHPRC «c:/usr/php4»
# remember to put this section below the above
# directory where your PHP5 php.ini file is located at
SetEnv PHPRC «c:/usr/php5»
—————————
This solution is not limited to having only two parallel versions of PHP. You can play with httpd.conf contents to have as many PHP versions configured as you want.
You can also use multiple php.ini configuration files for the same PHP version (but for different DocumentRoot subfolders), which might be useful in some cases.
Remember to put your php.ini files in directories specified in lines «SetEnv PHPRC. «, and make sure that there’s no php.ini files in other directories (such as c:\windows in Windows).
And finally, as you can see, I run PHP in CGI mode. This has its advantages and limitations. If you have to run PHP as Apache module, then. sorry — you have to use other solution (the best advice as always is: Google it!).
If you get 404 page not found on Windows/IIS5, have a look at C:\SYSTEM32\INETSRV\URLSCAN
There is a .ini file there that prevents some files from being served by IIS, even if they exist, instead IIS will give a 404. The urlscan logfile (same place) should give you some insight into what parameter is preventing a page from loading, if any.
If you are installing PHP on Vista just go to David Wang’s blog. http://blogs.msdn.com/david.wang/
archive/2006/06/21/HOWTO-Install-and-Run-PHP-on-IIS7-Part-2.aspx
After installing php-5.2.5-win32-installer.msi on my Windows XP2. with IIS5.1 it still didn’t run PHP files.
I eventually found the fix*:
1. Goto Control Panel>System>Advanced>Environmental Variables
2. Add a New System Variable «PHRC» and set its path as «C:\Program Files\PHP»
3. Restart
I made the mistake of setting a ‘wildcard application map’ for PHP on a Windows 2003 / IIS 6.0 / PHP ISAPI installation.
This resulted in «No input file specified» errors whenever I tried to load the default page in my site’s directories. I don’t know why this broke things, but it did.
If anyone has the same problem, this may be the cause.
I installed by Microsoft Installer, manually, whatever I always received de same error from IIS7.
HTTP Error 404.3 — Not Found
The page you are requesting cannot be served because of the extension configuration. If the page is a script, add a handler. If the file should be downloaded, add a MIME map.
The IIS7 interface is quite diferent and are not all together like IIS6
The 5.3 version have not any of those files: php5stdll, php5isapi.dll. etc.
The installer puts others files in handlers and I decided to use them as substitutes. Nothing done!
After that, I discovered that installer do not install these files within the sites, but in the root default site configuration of IIS7.
So, I copied the root configuration to my site and them it worked (all others procedures were done e.g. copy php.ini to windows folder)
In order to run php scripts with php.exe CGI instead of php4isapi.dll under IIS, following steps can be followed.
i) Add a web service extension for PHP using IIS manager. Choose a web service extension name like ‘PHP’ and add your php.exe path in the ‘file location’ while adding the required file e.g. ‘C:\php\php.exe’ in the Add extension dialog box. Don’t forget to ‘Allow’ the extension file.
ii) Open php.ini file located at %systemroot%. Set the following variables to the shown values.
cgi.force_redirect = 0
cgi.redirect_status_env = ENV_VAR_NAME
iii) In your websites, add Application Mapping for ‘.php’ and set the executable path to your php.exe file path.
You can test whether PHP is running or not and other PHP settings using the following simple PHP script.
Feroz Zahid
ferozzahid [_at_] usa [_dot_] [_com_]
Here’s how to run dual PHP instances with PHP 5.2 and any previous PHP on Windows 2003:
1. Right-click My Computer, go to Advanced tab, and click on Environment Variables.
Add the two installations and their EXT directories to the Path variable. For example, add:
c:\php;c:\php\ext;c:\TMAS\php;c:\tmas\php\ext;
Then, add the newer PHP version’s directory as a variable called PHPRC. For example:
Variable:PHPRC
Value: C:\PHP
Click OK to close the Environment Variables window, and click OK to close System Properties.
2. In registry, under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>SOFTWARE>PHP, add a REG_SZ key called iniFilePath and give it a value
of the directory where the older PHP is installed. For example:
C:\TMAS\PHP
3. In IIS, go to the Web Service Extensions. Add both versions’ ISAPI module separately to the extensions
list, and allow both.
4. In IIS, go to each website utilizing the PHP versions. Set an ISAPI filter if needed. On the Home Directory
tab, click Configuration, and add .php, .php3, .phtml, and any other extensions needed (perhaps .html?) to
be filtered through PHP, and specify the ISAPI module version needed for each website.
You can now run two versions of PHP. This is because the order of where to look for the .ini file changed
between previous PHP versions and PHP 5.2, as documented at http://us2.php.net/ini:
* SAPI module specific location (PHPIniDir directive in Apache 2, -c command line option in CGI and CLI, php_ini parameter in NSAPI, PHP_INI_PATH environment variable in THTTPD)
* The PHPRC environment variable. Before PHP 5.2.0 this was checked after the registry key mentioned below.
* HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PHP\IniFilePath (Windows Registry location)
* Current working directory (for CLI)
* The web server’s directory (for SAPI modules), or directory of PHP (otherwise in Windows)
* Windows directory (C:\windows or C:\winnt) (for Windows), or —with-config-file-path compile time option
—————————————————-
IIS setup: 403 forbidden error.
We had installed two separate different PHP versions — PHP 5.1.4 followed by 5.2.5.
We configured 5.2.5 php5isapi.dll to be loaded as the .php file type extension.
Despite this, php version 5.1.4 was being loaded. We renamed 5.1.4’s folder and then PHP was not loading at all.
There were no visible references to 5.1.4 in the IIS configuration, but in the file \webConfig.xml, there was a reference to 5.1.4’s isapi under IISFilters.
To fix this problem, we added version 5.2.5’s php5isapi.dll to the ISAPI Filter category for the web site, in the IIS control panel.
PHP 5.2.9.2 Install on XP Pro IIS 5.1 — phpinfo( ) results incorrect
Background:
For several days now I, as a newbie, have been unsure if I had installed PHP correctly, or not. No matter what I did phpinfo( ) reported «Configuratin File Path» as: “C:\WINDOWS”. I was left to wonder what was wrong.
To help resolve the phpinfo() “issue”, I conducted a series of tests using two scripts:
The first is “test-php-ini-loaded.php”; it is stored in c:\inetpub\wwwroot, and has the following code:
if ( $inipath ) echo ‘Loaded php.ini: ‘ . $inipath ;
> else echo ‘A php.ini file is not loaded’ ;
>
?>
The second script is simply calls phpinfo( ). It is named test.php, is stored in “c:\inetpub\wwroot”, and has the following code:
My Dev Environment:
1. Windows XP Pro SP3
2. IIS 5.1 / MMC 3.0
3. PHP 5.2.9.2 – phpMyAdmin not yet installed
4. (plus MySQL 5.1, etc.)
5. Install location is on my local E: drive
Test 1:
a. PHPRC environment variable and IniFilePath Registry left in place and active
b. Verified no other copies of php.ini exist on the system other than in my E:\PHP folder
c. Renamed php.ini to hold-php.ini
d. Stopped and started IIS (“net stop iisadmin” and “net start w3svc”)
e. Ran “test-php-ini-loaded.php” to check whether my php.ini is loaded. It is not.
f. Ran «test.php». “Loaded Configuration File” was empty, while “Configuration File (php.ini) Path” showed: C:\WINDOWS.
Test 2:
a. Moved php.ini from E:\PHP to C:\WINDOWS
b. Stopped and started IIS
c. Ran «test-php-ini-loaded.php» to check if my php.ini is loaded. It is not, which surprised me.
d. Ran «test.php». My php.ini is apparently not loaded, or found, by phpinfo( ), even though “Configuration File (php.ini) Path” reports it as being in C:\WINDOWS.
e. Note: Per PHP’s “The configuration file” note, PHP’s search order includes: “Windows directory (C:\windows or C:\winnt) (for Windows), . ”; but it apparently doesn’t or php.ini would have been found and displayed at “Loaded Configuration File”.
Test 3:
a. Left the solo copy of my php.ini in C:\WINDOWS
b. Disabled PHPRC environment variable by renaming it to “Ex-PHPRC and saving the settings (note: for this test I left the Registry entry for PHP IniFilePath intact)
c. Stopped and started IIS
d. Ran «test-php-ini-loaded.php» to check whether my php.ini is loaded. Predictably it is not found.
e. Ran the «test.php». Again, my php.ini file is reported as not found in C:\WINDOWS though “Configuration File (php.ini) Path” reports it as being there.
Test 4:
a. To be thorough and eliminate all possible sources of “mis-direction” I deleted the PHP IniFilePath Registry entry (after backing up the Registry). The PHPRC environment variable was left disabled.
b. Stopped and started IIS
c. Ran «test-php-ini-loaded.php» to check whether my php.ini is loaded. Predictably it is not.
d. Ran «test.php». Again, no change. My php.ini file is not found “Configuration File (php.ini) Path” reports it as being there.
Conclusions:
The first conclusion I came to is that, in the default download version of phpinfo( ), “Configuration File (php.ini) Path” is hard-wired to report C:\WINDOWS whether php.ini is there or not. Further, that C:\WINDOWS is not a default search location (at least not on XP).
However, given an otherwise “proper” setup, phpinfo() reporting C:\WINDOWS as the value for “Configuration File (php.ini) Path” is merely misleading and is not actually harmful or indicative of a failed installation.
Thanks go to Peter Guy of www.peterguy.com who suggested the testing, and to Daniel Brown of www.php.net for some initial guidance.
P.S. This note is not meant to take anything away from PHP. It is a fine tool. The sole purpose of the testing was to confirm that my installation of PHP was correct.