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Hyper-V is not hype

Posted on 3 Mar 2009 at 17:18

Jon Honeyball finds that hyper-v really is all it's cracked up to be, and David Moss gets to grips with installing an open-source cms on windows server 2008.

The next step is to start playing with INI files. I realised how much I miss these, since the demise of those older Windows versions that actually required you to understand them, back when win.ini and system.ini were your friends to be gently coaxed into making Windows perform as you desired. It really was a beautifully simple interface. But back to the present. Find php.ini-recommended in C:\PHP, rename it php.ini and open it in the text editor of your choice. Step one is to set up PHP to point to the extensions folder (I'm using default settings for PHP installation, so your mileage might vary):

extension_dir = "C:\PHP\ext"

Next, locate cgi.force_redirect and set it to 0, which has to be done if you're using IIS. Uncomment the line and set it thus:

cgi.force_redirect = 0

Find the line below, and uncomment it:

cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1

Now locate the line immediately under the one you just did and uncomment it (again, this step is required only for IIS):

fastcgi.impersonate = 1

I should just point out that I'm not going into great detail on each of these items, as they're well commented in the php.ini file. Once you've done all the above, save php.ini and you're ready to move on, which means heading to the Registry Editor, so go to Start | Search and type in "regedit" (without the quotes). Once it's open, navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\

Right-click on SOFTWARE and choose New, followed by Key, then name the key PHP. Click on this new PHP key to select it, right-click in its right-hand pane and select New, followed by String Value. Create a string value of:

IniFilePath

Once that's been created, double-click on it and set its Value Data to the following:

C:\PHP

Having told PHP where its INI file is located, you now need to include C:\PHP as part of the Windows path. Go to Control Panel, double-click on System and then select Advanced System Settings from the list under Tasks on the left-hand side. When the System Properties dialog opens, click on the Environment Variables... button. Scroll down the System variables list until you find Path, double-click on it, scroll to the end, place a semi-colon after the last entry, and add:

C:\PHP

Click on OK when you're done. Now fire up a command prompt and type the following command, then hit Enter:

cd c:\php

At the new command prompt type the following:

php -info

You should see a ton of data flashing by that terminates with some licence details. Job done - PHP is ready to go.

The next step towards getting Moodle up and running is to get IIS 7 to work with PHP. I'm then thinking of installing PHPMyAdmin, followed by MySQL and finally Moodle, so there's quite a bit to do over the coming months. See you next time.

David Moss