Problem with GET variables

Hello, I just updated PHP on my local computer from PHP 4.0.2 to 4.3.2 (Yes, I know, its a very very long time). I also downloded the latest version of Apache and installed PHP as a module. Now PHP runs fine on the server. I have a small problem though. Variables being sent via the GET method are not getting parsed. I can acess these variables via the $_GET["variable"] method but not through $variable. Any idea why. Most of my old PHP scripts accessed the variables directly by their name and so this will be a very very big problem for me. Any idea how I can get this old feature back. Thank you. - Sid