note 89143 rejected from faq.installation by thiago

Note Submitter: jpt at inbox dot com ---- Ok, my fingers are bloody. Is PHP actually made to work with Windows??! I have a simple uncluttered IIS 5.1 and Windows XP Pro (SP3) setup, I have tried - both the Windows installer install and the manual install, - set every variable and Admin setting per the install documentation (doc_root, PATH vars, etc, etc) - tried having PHP in it's own no-spaces-name directory, as well as under Program Files\PHP... - tried most of the comments/suggestions (many of which directly conflict with the install documentation above them) in this page... - every different exe in the install, and... .... I can't get a simple PHP test script to throw anything up. the IIS IS on, it will display basic HTML/text. The Windows logfiles (under \W3SVC1) show the thing is displaying pages. I don't get it. Why so much b.s.? Difficiencies in the documentation that make for uneeded confusion: - no clear statement as to WHICH exe to use (php.exe, php-cgi.exe, or php-win.exe)... what is the difference in these? - why does the installer version put PHP under Program Files\, when in the php.ini notes say that IIS will probably crash if PHP is under a directory with spaces? - no explanation as to why use ISAPI settings instead of CGI (I know most other developers are born knowing that, I just couldn't be in the line that day). I'll stop there. Does anyone care to send me a php.ini being used in a WORKING PHP installation, for IIS 5.x and Win XP Pro? And tell me which php.exe you're pointing to, and whatever else you think I should know. Or I'll leave PHP to those with lots of time to spend on it. Thanx.