Brand New to PHP Apache, Banging my head against the wall

I have set up PHP 5, Apache 2, and MySQL on a vista pro 64bit machine. I am using the Sams teach yourself text to set up and learn from. When i navigate to localhost and look at a html file, i see a webpage, if i look at a php script, i get nothing, just blank, and i can't even view source. I have checked and re-checked php.iini and httpd, and tried different configs I have found in other posts, nothing seems to be working, I thank you in advance for any help you could offer.

re: Brand New to PHP Apache, Banging my head against the wall

then you don't have php running. you have loaded the php5_module in apache?

re: Brand New to PHP Apache, Banging my head against the wall

I added the line LoadModule php5_module c:/php/php5apache2_2.dll to httpd and the PHPIniDir "c:/php/ line as well. In add type I added AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .html

I was told that was all I needed to add to get apache to access php, I am most likely wrong.

re: Brand New to PHP Apache, Banging my head against the wall

Do you get a blank page as well if you try to display the phpinfo(); file?

re: Brand New to PHP Apache, Banging my head against the wall

Did you use a package like WAMP?

Install PHP 5 Apache MySQL on Windows : WampServer

It's quick and easy to setup Apache MySQL and PHP on windows box. Also don't forget to start the server/services.