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IMPORTANT PHP setup question for newbie

Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 10:19 am
by joe.squirrel
New to working with PHP. I am trying to install PHP on a Windows 2003 with IIS 6 and have some excellent documentation on how to do so. The question I have is: The documentation mentions to uncomment many of the extensions in the ini file, but the extensions do not exist it the ext directory. I found that when I unzip the PECL file the extensions are there.

CAN I COPY THE DLL FILES FROM THE PECL DIRECTORY TO THE EXT DIRECTORY?

I am trying to run PHP version 5.1.4.

Need help with this, please.

Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 10:23 am
by RobertGonzalez
I am pretty sure you can. Why not try it and see where it takes you? As a suggestion, I would only uncomment the extensions that you know you will be using.

Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 10:31 am
by joe.squirrel
Thanks for the information. I know what extensions I need and which ones not to comment out, I just was not sure whether or not I could copy the dll files from PECL to ext. Will give it a try and hopefully will not have to rebuild the IIS server.

Thanks much.

Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 10:35 am
by RobertGonzalez
Which PHP distibution are you using? Did you get it from PHP.net? I only ask because when I downloaded the Windows binaries from php.net, the installer added all the extensions to the \ext folder when installing.

Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 11:36 am
by Burrito
avoid using the installer at all costs.

it's a bit more leg work to manually install, but in the end you're much better off. The most notable difference is isapi vs cgi (which is huge)!

Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 11:58 am
by RobertGonzalez
Alright Burrito, 'splain to me. I have always wondered what the difference is.

Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 12:11 pm
by Burrito
isapi is cached, cgi executes the php.exe file for each script load.

for servers that have a small load, it's not a biggie, but if you're planning on having a decent amount of traffic (and for optimization purposes anyway), isapi is the clear winner.

Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 12:15 pm
by RobertGonzalez
Sweet. I have never installed PHP on a production windows server before. Come to think of it, I have never installed PHP on a production server at all. It came installed on my Linux Dedicated Server and was installed at OS install time when I installed Fedora Core 4. I did install PHP from binaries on my develop machine (WinXP) but I never really paid attention to the isapi vs. cgi issue.

Considering that the server use I generate for local development is next to nothing, I have never noticed, one way or the other, if there is a performance issue. But it is good to know for later.

Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 12:18 pm
by Burrito
for dev purposes, I wouldn't sweat it. I install it as isapi ALWAYS now out of habit more than anything else. But for production, isapi is an absolute must imho.