Compiling Php on Windows

Hello, I want to compile php on windows 95 using Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 because many extensions like ldap and imap are not available in the download. I followed the instructions provided in the manual which are inadequate and doesn't provide detailed instructions. First of all it asks to download cgywin but I was able to compile php4ts.dll in D:\php-4.2.0\win32\php4ts.dsw after selecting php4dllts.dll - Win32 Release Dll without using cygwin. Only thing needed to compile this was windows specific download http://www.php.net/extra/win32build.zip (which included bison and flex) and http://www.php.net/extra/bindlib_w32.zip. So when and why cygwin is needed to be downloaded. Firstly when compiling exe version bison expects bison.simple to be present in c:\usr\local\lib, I don't know why. I was able to proceed with compilation only after creating this directory and copying bison.simple form windows specific download win32build/bin directory. Is there any way to correct this? Secondly many of the extension libraries and header files and other files in win32build download are very old. So, it won't provide new functionality provided by new versions of many software libraries like mysql, gd, freetype, ldap and db etc. So how can I link php extensions against new libraries of these software which I have compiled myself. Because php also needs some other files from this win32build directory but I don't know which files. So when I include win32build/lib and win32build/include directories to VC++ include and lib directories all files are added, including gd, ldap libraries etc. So I want to know which files are needed by core php from win32build (windows specific download) so that I can remove other includes and libs from this directory which are needed by extensions only. Or Can I include new libraries and includes of gd, ldap, mysql etc to this win32build/lib and win32build/include directory and overwrite old libraries and includes? Also so many different workspaces and projects are provided but I don't know which one is needed to be selected and complied to get php binaries which are available on php.net and included in windows binary download. For example in D:\php-4.2.0\win32 4 there are many projects and 4 workspaces. These are php_modules.dsw, php4.dsw, php4dll.dsw and php4ts.dsw. Each one of these include many projects. So which I should use and set as active configuration to compile php Release Version. What is the difference between phpdllts.dll and phpdllnts.dll What _Ts in project name mean.