Installing an configuring PHP

[saz]

Hi,
I am new to PHP. I also have Dreamweaver installed on my Windows PC.
I'd like to start writing some simple PHP files. I just installed IIS
which is part of Windows XP. I verified that it works fine.

Now when I installed PHP from the www.php.net site, it asks me what
server I am using. There are 4 versions of IIS as choices. Which one do
I choose ?

Why is it that when I create a simple php file and place it in
c:/inetpub/www, when I double-click on the file it opens Dreamweaver.
How to I make it go to my IIS server and PHP application and not to
Dreamweaver ?

My .php file contains:
<pre>&lt;p&gt;This page was created at &lt;b&gt; &lt;?php echo
date(&quot;h:i:s a&quot;, time()); ?&gt; &lt;/b&gt; on the computer
running PHP.&lt;/p&gt; </pre>
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Steve

[Hendri Kurniawan]

See below for answers

Hendri Kurniawan

saz wrote:

Hi,
I am new to PHP. I also have Dreamweaver installed on my Windows PC.
I'd like to start writing some simple PHP files. I just installed IIS
which is part of Windows XP. I verified that it works fine.

Now when I installed PHP from the www.php.net site, it asks me what
server I am using. There are 4 versions of IIS as choices. Which one do
I choose ?

I'm not sure about the ISS, but for win XP (I think... please confirm
with others) it's IIS4.

>
Why is it that when I create a simple php file and place it in
c:/inetpub/www, when I double-click on the file it opens Dreamweaver.
How to I make it go to my IIS server and PHP application and not to
Dreamweaver ?

Because Dreamweaver is the default app to open the file.
Not to worry though.... Navigate through VIA your browser, and type the
following address.
http://localhost/ following the name of your PHP file.

My .php file contains:
<pre>&lt;p&gt;This page was created at &lt;b&gt; &lt;?php echo
date(&quot;h:i:s a&quot;, time()); ?&gt; &lt;/b&gt; on the computer
running PHP.&lt;/p&gt; </pre>
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Steve

[Carl Pearson]

saz wrote:

Why is it that when I create a simple php file and place it in
c:/inetpub/www, when I double-click on the file it opens Dreamweaver.
How to I make it go to my IIS server and PHP application and not to
Dreamweaver ?

Windows file associations, which can seen in any explorer (not IE, the
file explorer) window by choosing Tools/Folder Options/File Types.
Scroll down until you see "PHP", click "Change", then "Browse" to point
it to php.exe instead.

FWIW, IIS is OK, but in the minority so far as web server usage. If you
want to develop locally you may wish to try an all-in-one package like
XAMPP, which will install PHP/Apache/MySQL for you. Once it's up &
running you can examine the relevant config files (php.ini, httpd.conf,
my.cnf, etc.) to learn how to perform upgrades yourself in the future.

While DreamWeaver is a good app, I personally find it to be overkill for
editing PHP source code. A text editor is all you really need.
Consider getting a "programmer's" editor. I've used TextPad for some
years (costs around $30); there are also freeware editors such as PSPad.
A good one should support code hilighting (color-coding the words),
printing with line numbers, macros, and so on.

There are also PHP IDE's such as Komodo which will let you step through
code, for personal use they're not that expensive.