Passing vars between pages using Apache on my laptop

Aloha, I am using Apache on my laptop to emulate my online database and site and wondering about 2 things: 1 - I'm not able to pass variables between pages in PHP e.g. On page1.php I have a field named in_company, which, on the website my client is hosted from passes into the next page as $in_company. But on my self-configured Apache/PHP/MySQL laptop setup, the variables come up as undefined on the follwing page. The queries with MySQL work nicely, but not without variable passing. I don't like to append on to the URL as some vars I like to keep low profile. e.g. http://www.mysite.com?var_0=5&var_1=sometext&var_2=morestuff&etc=more Hopefully someone gets the picture here. How do I configure my PHP.INI file on my laptop to pass the vars? Or how do I configure Apache to pass the vars if that is where the problem is? Which leads to my next problem... 2 - I want to configure PHP on Apache as a module and not as an executable. Everytime I try to configure according to the instructions the Server returns a message that it fails to load. So I set it up as an executable and it works fine, but I really want the module setup as I prefer professionalism and just want to be "enabled" in installing modules. Also, according to the PHP install file, they (PHP guys) refer to it as suicidal. Not pretty... (SIDENOTE: I am using Windoze 2000 platform, fyi) Thanks for any and all help. I'm a convert from lower level programming(C and Assembly) and find PHP easy and practical as hell for website programming. And dammit, it's fun! Thanks again. Scott