IIS is built in to Windows. On Windows Server, the IIS role can be added via the Server Manager. The CGI Role Feature needs to be included. On Windows Desktop, IIS has to be added via the Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs. The Microsoft documentation has » detailed instructions. For desktop web apps and web-development, IIS/Express or PHP Desktop can also be used.
Example #1 Command line to configure IIS and PHP
@echo off REM download .ZIP file of PHP build from http://windows.php.net/downloads/ REM path to directory you decompressed PHP .ZIP file into (no trailing \) set phppath=c:\php REM Clear current PHP handlers %windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd clear config /section:system.webServer/fastCGI REM The following command will generate an error message if PHP is not installed. This can be ignored. %windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd set config /section:system.webServer/handlers /-[name='PHP_via_FastCGI'] REM Set up the PHP handler %windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd set config /section:system.webServer/fastCGI /+[fullPath='%phppath%\php-cgi.exe'] %windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd set config /section:system.webServer/handlers /+[name='PHP_via_FastCGI',path='*.php',verb='*',modules='FastCgiModule',scriptProcessor='%phppath%\php-cgi.exe',resourceType='Unspecified'] %windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd set config /section:system.webServer/handlers /accessPolicy:Read,Script REM Configure FastCGI Variables %windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd set config -section:system.webServer/fastCgi /[fullPath='%phppath%\php-cgi.exe'].instanceMaxRequests:10000 %windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe set config -section:system.webServer/fastCgi /+"[fullPath='%phppath%\php-cgi.exe'].environmentVariables.[name='PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS',value='10000']" %windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe set config -section:system.webServer/fastCgi /+"[fullPath='%phppath%\php-cgi.exe'].environmentVariables.[name='PHPRC',value='%phppath%\php.ini']"
There are several builds of Apache2 for Windows. The Apache builds of ApacheLounge are recommended, but other options include XAMPP, WampServer and BitNami, which provide automatic installer tools. PHP can be used on Apache through mod_php or mod_fastcgi. mod_php requires a TS build of Apache built with same version of Visual C and same CPU (x86 or x64).
Windows builds can be downloaded from » http://windows.php.net/download/. All builds are optimized (PGO), and QA and GA releases are thoroughly tested.
There are 4 types of PHP builds:
Thread-Safe(TS) - for single process web servers, like Apache with mod_php
Non-Thread-Safe(NTS) - for IIS and other FastCGI web servers (Apache with mod_fastcgi) and recommended for command-line scripts
x86 - for 32-bits systems.
x64 - for 64-bits systems.