Help with Apache 2.2.11 and PHP 5.2.11

Question

I was running a "happy" installation of Apache (2.2.11) and PHP (some other version) with no problems on my development machine.

Then, one day, I felt like upgrading to 5.2.11 (PHP) and this broke my install. Now, Apache fails to run, and the Windows "More info" button shows that the erring module is "php4ts" or something similar.

It displays the standard Windows error message:

Apache HTTP Server has encountered a problem and needs to close ...

and in the "More information" section, it says:

Error Signature -- szAppName : httpd.exe szAppVer: 2.2.11.0 szModName : php5ts.dll szModVer 5.2.11.11 offset: 000f331b.

Apart from the stuff required to use PHP, httpd.conf doesn't have anything notable. On commenting the PHP part out, Apache runs, but without PHP (as expected).

Answer 1

If you're not very experienced with Apache, PHP, and MySQL, I would highly recommend that you look at XAMPP. It's a pre-packaged, all-in-one, LAMP server for Linux and Windows. It's super easy to setup and if you need to ugprade, if you install the full version, it includes scripts that automatically upgrade the whole package.

Answer 2

Why do you have php4ts ? This should be php5ts. It's quite possible that you have a mixture of versions, which is the source of your problem.

Rather than upgrading I would start from scratch: Uninstall all affected software, delete all its directories, then install the vanilla products and see if they run as-is, with no additional modules or anything extra.

Then, once everything works in a standard configuration, I would start building towards my final configuration, but doing one small change at a time.

Answer 3

Although it doesn't really answer your question (fix an existing Apache), I'll give an answer like Chris' but instead of XAMPP, I'd propose WampServer.

From their presentation:

WampServer is a Windows web development environment. It allows you to create web applications with Apache, PHP and the MySQL database. It also comes with PHPMyAdmin to easily manage your databases.

WampServer installs automatically (installer), and its usage is very intuitive. You will be able to tune your server without even touching the setting files.

WampServer is the only packaged solution that will allow you to reproduce your production server. Once WampServer is installed, you have the possibility to add as many Apache, MySQL and PHP releases as you want.

WampServer also has a trayicon to manage your server and its settings.

You can install several versions of Apache, MySql and PHP and quickly select which one you want to run, or switch easily to another one.