php-src/win32/README.txt

PHP 4.0 - Win32 Distribution
============================


Note
----

PHP 4.0 for Windows comes in two flavours - a CGI executable (php.exe), and an
ISAPI module (php4ts.dll).  The latter is new to PHP 4.0, and provides significantly
improved performance and some new functionality.  However, please note that the
ISAPI module is *NOT* yet considered to be in production quality.  The reason for
this is that the PHP ISAPI module uses the thread-safe version of the PHP code, which
is completely new to PHP 4.0, and has not yet been tested and pounded enough to be
considered completely stable, and there are actually a few known bugs.  On the other
hand, some people have reported very good results with the ISAPI module, even though
we're not aware of anyone actually running it on a production site.  In short - your
mileage may vary;  If you need absolute stability, trade the performance of the ISAPI
module with the stability of the CGI executable.


Requirements
------------

- Windows 95 or later, Windows NT 4.0 or later
- ISAPI 4.0 compliant Web server required for ISAPI module (tested on IIS 4.0, PWS 4.0
  IIS 5.0).  IIS 3.0 is *NOT* supported;  You should download and install the Windows
  NT 4.0 Option Pack with IIS 4.0 if you want native PHP support.
- Windows 95 requires the DCOM update, freely available from:
    http://download.microsoft.com/msdownload/dcom/95/x86/en/dcom95.exe


Installation
------------

Unlike PHP 3, PHP 4 is divided into several components;  Even when you use
PHP in its CGI mode, php.exe is no longer a standalone executable, and relies
on external DLLs for execution.  For this reason, if you install php.exe as
a handler for your web server, you must make sure that the DLLs in the
distribution exist in a directory that is in the Windows PATH.  The easiest way
to do it is to copy these DLLs to your SYSTEM (Windows 9x) or SYSTEM32 (Windows NT)
directory, which is under your Windows directory.
The DLLs that need to be copied are MSVCRT.DLL (it may already exist in there) and
PHP4TS.DLL.

Installation Notes for IIS 4.0 and 5.0
--------------------------------------

- Install the DLLs as mentioned above.
- If you wish to change any defaults, copy either the php.ini-dist or
  php.ini-optimized files into your Windows directory, and rename it to
  'php.ini'.  You can then modify any of the directives inside it.
- Start the Microsoft Management Console (may appear as
  'Internet Services Manager', either in your Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack branch
  or the Control Panel->Administrative Tools under Windows 2000).
- Right click on your Web server node (will most probably appear as 'Default Web
  Server'), and select 'Properties'.
- Under 'ISAPI Filters', add a new ISAPI filter.  Use 'PHP' as the filter name,
  and supply a path to the php4isapi.dll that is included in the distribution.
- Under 'Home Directory', click on the 'Configuration' button.  Add a new entry
  to the Application Mappings;  Use the path the php4isapi.dll as the Executable,
  supply .php as the extension, leave 'Method exclusions', blank, and check
  the Script engine checkbox.
- Stop IIS completely (you would have to stop the IIS Administration service for
  that - stopping it through the Management Console isn't good enough;  You can
  do it by typing 'net stop iisadmin' on a command prompt).
- Start IIS again (you can do it by typing 'net start w3svc' on a command prompt).
- Put a .php file under your Web server's document root and check if it works!



Installation Notes for Microsoft PWS 4.0
----------------------------------------

- Install the php.ini file and the DLLs as mentioned above.
- Edit the enclosed PWS-php4.reg file to reflect the location of your
  php4isapi.dll.  Forward slashes should be escaped, for example:
  
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\w3svc\parameters\Script Map]
".php"="C:\\Program Files\\PHP\\php4isapi.dll"

- In the PWS Manager, right click on a given directory you want to add PHP support
  to, and select Properties.  Check the 'Execute' checkbox, and confirm.

At this point, PWS should have built-in PHP support.



Adding Extensions
-----------------

A few pre-compiled extensions are included in this release.  You can load them
by adding a line like the following to your php.ini file:
extension=path\to\extension\extension_name.dll
Loading these extensions extends the functionality of PHP to support more
functions and protocols.

Good luck,

Zeev <zeev@zend.com>, Andi <andi@zend.com>  [June 25, 2000]