IIS, and how it reads the Path/Environment variables

Greetings, I realize this may not be the proper place to ask this question -- but as it's in relation to a PHP install I thought someone here might know. I'm trying to install PHP with the MSSQL extension on a Windows 2003 production environment. I'm not a network admin, but have been given special permission to do so for a project I'm trying to implement. I have successfully gotten PHP to function properly, however it will not load the MSSQL or any SQL extension for some reason. I've been told that I need to restart IIS in order to get it to work, but I have special reason to believe that's not true. IIS will shut down idle worker processes after a declared amount of time and when it gets called again will start it anew. That being said, I've successfully changed PHP configurations and seen a change in the output of phpinfo(); or broken PHP all together. It's just not picking up the extensions for some reason. I've been told that restarting IIS is not an option available to me. I will provide a phpinfo page privately to someone if they're willing to help me with this.. Thanks in advance, -Austin