Lets get to it.

First thing to do is right click My Computer and select Properties:

Select Advanced tab and you’ll see what is shown in figure 2 above. Now click Environment variables button.

In the bottom box select Path as shown in figure 1 above. Click edit. You’ll get a box like figure 2 above with path highlighted. Click into the box at the end of the path and add:

;C:\path\to\mysql\bin for mySQL

;C:\path\to\php for PHP

Don’t forget the leading ” ; ” when adding the paths. Those are the path seperators.

That’s all there is to it. If you have any question post a comment. If you need one on one help visit the forum.

If you follow this procedure you can have PHP and MYSQL upgraded in less than an hour.

Of course that doesn’t include the time it takes to download PHP and MYSQL. I will assume you have them downloaded. Lets get started. We’ll upgrade MYSQL first.

Upgrading MYSQL
As I said I assume you have the MYSQL zip already download. Use the zip nenver the installer. Extract the zip. You will have a directory called mysql-noinstall-4.1.16-win32 or something similar. The 4.1.16 will change depending on the version you downloaded. Inside that there will be mysql-4.1.6-win32 directory. Again the version number might be different. Rename mysql-4.1.6-win32 to mysql-4.1.16 and copy it to where ever you installed the version you want to upgrade. If your old version is at c:\mysql then copy the dir to C:\mysql-4.1.16.
Now copy my.ini from the old version of MYSQL to the new version. Open my.ini with Notepad and change

basedir=
datadir=
socket =

to reflect the new path to MYSQL. Example:

basedir=C:/mysql-4.1.6
datadir=C:/mysql-4.1.6/data
socket = C:/mysql-4.1.6/mysql.sock

Now we want to shutdown mysql. Open a command prompt and give this command.

C:\mysql\bin\mysqladmin -u root shutdown

Now all we have to do is uninstall the old service and install the service for the new version. First stop the MYSQL service.

net stop mysql

This will stop the MYSQL service. It might be a good idea to shutoff IIS first or you’ll get MYSQL errors on your site.
After the service is stopped then we want to uninstall the old service. At the command prompt use this command.

C:\mysql\bin\mysqld-max-nt.exe –remove

Now this assumes you installed mysqld-max-nt binary as the service. If you installed mysqld then adjust the command above to reflect the binary you used.
Once the old service is removed we can install the new service. First we want to make sure the new version of mysql runs without any problems. Give this command.

C:\mysql-4.1.16\bin\mysqld –console

After a short time you should see mysqld: ready for connections. If you see that then shutdown MYSQL so that we can move your databases and install the new service to finish up.
Once you know the new version of MYSQL works and have shutdown the new version it is time to move your database. Move into the old version of MYSQL and right click the data dir and select copy. Move into the new version of mysql and paste it overwriting the current data dir. That’s it. Once you have MYSQL upgraded and running you might want to optimize each database.
The last step. Install the new service and change the MYSQL path. To install the new service give this command.

C:\mysql-4.1.16\bin\mysqld-max-nt.exe –install

Yuor websites will now use the new version of MYSQL. Last thing you want to do is change the path variable to the new version. If you followed the tutorial to install MYSQL you’ll already have a path variable set to the old version. Just follow the procedure in instaling MYSQL to change the variable. If you don’t have the path variable follow the instaling MYSQL to set it.
MYSQL is now upgraded. Restart IIS, if you shut it down, and open a browser and navigate to your site. Everything should be running normally.
Next step is upgrading PHP. Lets get started.

First lets download PHP from php.net. Select one of the zip versions preferably in the 5.x branch. Do not install PHP with the installer. Once you have PHP downloaded open a connection to your server using remote desktop. Make sure when you connect you select options. When you see all the options at the top click local resources. Check the box that says bring local disks to server. Now type in your admin login and password and connect. A box will popup asking if you want to bring your disks to the server. Click OK.Now you’re connected to your server. Open My Computer and you’ll see the server disks as well as your disks. Browse to the servers C:\Inetpub directory. If you have Inetpub on a different drive than C then browse to it. Now minimize the RDP connection. On your own computer browse to where you downloaded the php zip. You did download the zip didn’t you? Again don’t use the installer. Extract the zip. You should now have a folder called php-5.x.x.

Now we’ll move the php folder to your server. Right click the folder and select copy. Maximize you RDP connection. Make sure that C:\Inetpub is open. Right click and select paste. It might take some time for the menu to popup after you right click. It will. Select paste you’ll see a transfer box come up and it will transfer the php-5.x.x folder to C:\Inetpub. Another option and maybe a faster option is to start remote desktop and download PHP on the server.

Now that you have PHP downloaded and in place in C:\Inetpub it’s time to set IIS to use it to parse .php pages.

First thing to do is rename php.ini.recommended to php.ini. We won’t edit it at this time. The defaults of the recommended ini is good to get PHP running.

First thing to do is set up the path to php in Environment Variables.

1. Click start and right click My Computer.
2. Select the Advanced tab.
3. Click Environment Variables

In the bottom box select Path and then Edit button. At the end of the Path variable add ;C:\Inetpub\php-5.x.x.
Substitute the folder path to what folder you actually have PHP in. There is one thing we need to do while you have the variables box open. Click the New button. In the Variable Name field put PHPRC. In the Variable Value field put C:\Inetpub\php-5.x.x. All done close that out and click apply for the changes to take affect.

Note: You might have to reboot the server so the new path and new variable take effect. To test it open a command window and type php. If you get an error then you’ll have to reboot. Don’t yet we still have work to do.

Now lets configure IIS to use PHP.

Open up IIS Manager. Start > Administrative Tools > Internet Information Services (IIS) Manger.

First thing we’ll do is add a new web service extension and enable it. In the left pane click on Web Service Extensions. in the left you’ll now see some options. Click add new web service extension. A box will popup. For the Extension name add PHP-IASPI. Click Add to add the required file. Browse to C:\Inetpub\php-5.x.x or whatever folder you put php in and select php php5isapi.dll. Check the Set extension status to allow box. Click ok to apply. IIS is now setup to use PHP, but, we aren’t quit done yet.

While still in IIS Manager expand My Websites. If you only have Default Website it’s a breeze getting PHP running.

Right click Default Website and select properties. Once the properties window comes up select Home Diretory tab. In Excutive settings in the dropdown select scripts only and click create. If you already have ASP or other scripts running on the server the Application will already be enabled for scripts. If you see an application name then skip the above step.

Click on the Configuration button. Click Add. When the box comes up you’ll see the Executable box with a browse button next to it. Click browse and navigate to the php5isapi.dll the same as you did when you added the web services extension. In the extension box add php. Uncheck Verify if exists. Click OK and apply. If you need to have php parse different extensions use the same procedure to add more extensions.

All done. Now it’s time to test it out. Open Note pad and put < ?php phpinfo(); ?> in it. Save it as test.php in your websites root. Make sure it doesn’t save as test.php.txt. If it did rename it to test.php. Open up your browser and browse to http://yoursite.tld/test.php. If you see the PHP information page then you have done everything correctly.

If you got an error when you tried to run php at the command prompt then reboot your server.

If you don’t see that page then retrace your steps to find your error.
If you have more than one website and if you want PHP to work in each you have to configure each site like you did the Default Website. In the next installment we’ll add some extensions and set up PEAR.