Hi there. I'm posting on behalf of our network manager who is trying to install Moodle 2.4 in our school and has got stuck at the PHP point. It's Server 2003 R2 on IIS 6 (hopefully that means something to you) When he goes to the browser he gets the message that he is running PHP 5.2.9 and he needs 5.3.2. Now- I knew that already but what I don't know, and he doesn't know - is how he changes it. Could someone help please?
Thanks
The short answer is that he needs to obtain the latest version of PHP and install it.
For a more practical answer, he needs to consider how PHP 5.2.9 got onto the server in the first place. Did he install it? Did someone else? Was it preinstalled?
He can download the official PHP software from http://windows.php.net/download/, but that might not be the best way to get it. A lot of the time PHP is bundled with other software (eg EasyPHP, although you are probably not using this if you have IIS); if this is how your current PHP was installed then he would be better of checking for a newer version of the bundle.
Sorry if that has given you more questions than answers.
Thanks - I have passed on (ok, copied and pasted) your message and I will get back with his response. I suspect the older version is because he has a 1.9 on that server that he installed years ago - but this is a totally new install, not related to that 1.9
Continuing from my query above... message from the network manager:
I have installed PHP 5.3.2 but when I browse to the moodle folder to try and start the site and configure it I get the same message as before re the version of PHP. Is there anything we need to do in Moodle to get it to point to the PHP program. Can you try and find out from the contacts you have?
It sounds like both versions of PHP are installed on the computer. The web server (IIS) needs to be configured to use PHP and it can only use one version at a time (unless you do some very fancy configuration which is beyond me!)
I'm not an IIS expert (I usually use Apache) but I think he needs to use the IIS Manager to modify the PHP Handler Mapping to point to the correct version of PHP. On a test server I use, I literally open the manager, select "Handler Mappings", find an entry for PHP and then edit it.
If that works, great! If not, I'm afraid he'll have to start Google-ing or wait for someone with more IIS experience to come along.
Good luck!
Have you tried restarting IIS? In my experience with Apache, restarting is a vital step when doing almost anything at all in terms of server configuration.
I think there are system tray controls to restart (or stop, then start) IIS, but if in doubt, restart the whole server (assuming it's development and not production!).
Dear Mary,
A quick Google (and from having tried myself with IIS once) gives:
http://www.simongibson.com/intranet/php2003/
http://php.net/manual/en/install.windows.iis6.php
http://www.microsoft.com/web/platform/phponwindows.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/web/gallery/moodle.aspx/
Even though some are older PHP, the configuration though IIS should be the same. The last being I suspect a good way of seeing what is the ideal environment.
Alternatively, you can run Apache and IIS at the same time as long as they are on different ports (sockets). Then you can with the correct DNS server configuration have www.abc.ac.uk go to say 192.168.1.1:80 and moodle.abc.ac.uk to 192.168.1.1:8080 as an example.
Cheers,
Gareth
You may also want to note the following;
System Requirements (Microsoft Drivers for PHP for SQL Server)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc296170(v=sql.105).aspx
PHP on Windows
Thanks to all who offered help - it's installed now ( I think the issue was with having two versions of php on the server because of having an older Moodle as well - he wiped it clean and started again) However, there is another issue now -if you see the post on increasing max upload size
