Although this is a 'Stable' snapshot - it is still a snapshot and not a recommended release for production purposes. I am providing this tutorial because all stable production release versions from 5.1.x and below do not work with the latest stable release of Apache 2.2.2.

Go to http://snaps.php.net/ and download the latest stable Win32 Package. This tutorial assumes you will want to install the latest version 5 snapshot build which at the time of writing is 5.2. For this tutorial I used the snapshot built on 29th June 2006. You should use the latest snapshot dated the same day as you download it.

Click on the latest version ' php5.2 (zip) ' to download  the file named ' php5.2-win32-2006xxxxxx.zip ' - 8.4MB, save it to your hard drive in a suitable temporary location. (In case of re-installs being necessary I have a permanent location called 'Master Programs' where I download to and extract from there). [xxxxxx being the date of the latest version]

Step 2 - Install PHP

Following on from our previous related tutorial on Apache, extract/copy all files and sub-folders to 'C:\Apache2\php5' - if you extract elsewhere e.g - 'D:\PHP5\' , please remember to substitute this file path in any future references.

Note: PHP5 Installation is slightly different to PHP4 installations, PHP 4 installation techniques can be found here. The php5 install.txt has this to say :-

Upgrading from a previous PHP version: Previous editions of the manual suggest moving various ini and DLL files into your SYSTEM (i.e. C:\WINDOWS) folder and while this simplifies the installation procedure it makes upgrading difficult. We advise you remove all of these files (like php.ini and PHP related DLLs from the Windows SYSTEM folder) before moving on with a new PHP installation. Be sure to backup these files as you might break the entire system. The old php.ini might be useful in setting up the new PHP as well. And as you'll soon learn, the preferred method for installing PHP is to keep all PHP related files in one directory and have this directory available to your systems PATH.

Locate C:\Apache2\php5\phi.ini-recommended and make a copy of this file, rename it to php.ini and make sure it is saved in the same folder.

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