I have been going round and round trying to get any sort of PHP running on IIS 6. I somehow managed to successfully get version 5.1.4 running using the php5isapi.dll file. However, I want to upgrade a website to begin using a Content Management System. I have never dug into CMS before so I'm open to programs that are easy to use. I am currently looking into TomatoCMS and ImpressCMS - but that's beside the point.

I have never done an installation with PHP before and I think I'm getting familiar with how it works. However the current situation is this. Microsoft's Web Platform Installer 2.0 installed FastCGI for me. I need to upgrade to PHP 5.3.1 for a CMS system. So I downloaded the Windows installer and let it go at it.

After consulting several other blog articles, I believe I know how it is supposed to work but I am currently not having luck.

THE SETUP

*.php is a registered extension in IIS 6 for all websites (on Win 2k3). The application that it calls is C:\Windows\system32\inetsvr\fcgiext.dll, like it should.

The fcgiext.ini config has the proper lines:

[Types] php=PHP

[PHP] ext=C:\program files\PHP\php-cgi.exe

And the php.ini file also has the correct configs. All extensions are disabled and I changed the correct things for FastCGI. And everything is registered correctly with the PATH variable. Everything is exactly how it should be.

BUT when I launch the "info.php" page () on another computer, I get the following error:

FastCGI Error The FastCGI Handler was unable to process the request.

Error Details:

* Section [PHP] not found in config file.
* Error Number: 1413 (0x80070585).
* Error Description: Invalid index.

HTTP Error 500 - Server Error. Internet Information Services (IIS)

A quick Google search reveals that I have it all setup correctly as far as the INI's go and the mapping of the php extension. I am completely at a loss. Does anyone have any suggestions? Although the server is hosting three small websites, I don't really care what I have to do to it to get it to work.