Installing PHP on Windows XP Home and Apache

Hi, I have followed the instructions in install.txt that came with the PHP files which can also be found here... http://www.php.net/manual/en/installation.php but when I try to view an ..php page I only get the html parts of it. There is no error message at all, its just that the bits inbetween <?php and ?> (i.e the php stuff) is ignored. If I view the source in IE then I see the PHP stuff but why is it being ignored by Apache? I have unistalled Apache and PHP and followed the instructions in install.txt from the begining serveral times so I am pretty sure I have followed them correctly. Any ideas on what I should try next? Are there any GUI front ends for PHP/Apache that would make things alot easier? Going in to geek mode to edit config files is all very well but sometimes I just want things to work first time. Thanks all.