This guide describes installation of PHP with FastCGI on IIS6 server.

We strongly recommend you to use the latest version of PHP (v5.3 or higher). Earlier versions of PHP for Windows have bugs and may freeze when launch external programs (e.g. attachment indexation plugins) using Windows command line.

Actual PHP versions work with IIS via FastCGI interface. We will explain how to install FastCGI and configure it to work with PHP.

• Installing the FastCGI Extension for IIS 6.0
• Downloading and Installing PHP
• Manually Configuring FastCGI Extension to Work with PHP
• Create script mapping
• Modify fcigext.ini file
• Configure default document in IIS
• Setting FastCGI Configuration for Optimal Functionality, Security and Performance with PHP
• Testing PHP CGI

Installing the FastCGI Extension for IIS 6.0

The FastCGI extension for 32bit and 64bit Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 can be downloaded from the official Microsoft website.

When you run FastCGI installer, it copies FastCGI specific files to "%WINDIR%\system32\inetsrv" folder (e.g. "C:\Windows\system32\inetsrv\") and then registers and enables FastCGI Web Server Extension. Out of the files that the installer copies, be aware of the following:

• fcgiext.dll – This is the actual FastCGI handler that communicates with FastCGI enabled processes for processing requests
• fcgiext.ini – This is the configuration file that contains mapping of file extensions to FastCGI processes. It also contains the configuration of FastCGI process pools.

Downloading and Installing PHP

1. Download the latest PHP package for Windows 
   You need the latest version of PHP v5.6 family. Choose ZIP package VC9 x86 Non Thread Safe.
   
   MSSQL
   

   If you're planning to use MSSQL as a database server, be sure download PHP v5.3.* (not v5.4.* or higher!) as SQL drivers for PHP that work on IIS6 are available only for v5.3.* family. PHP v5.4.* or higher drivers for SQL doesn't work on IIS6.

   If your database is MySQL you can use PHP v5.4.*, v5.5.* or v5.6.* without any restrictions.

2. Extract the contents of PHP zip package to a folder on your server, e.g. C:\PHP\
3. Make a copy of the php.ini-production file and name it php.ini
4. Open the php.ini and setup the following parameters. Every parameter already exists in the php.ini and you just need to find it, uncomment (by removing ";" character from the beginning of the line), and change its value. Make sure that you do not have one of these options specified twice in the php.ini file.
   

   memory_limit = -1
   post_max_size = 128M
   extension_dir = "C:\PHP\ext"
   upload_tmp_dir = "C:\PHP\upload"
   upload_max_filesize = 128M

   max_execution_time = 600
   max_input_time = 600
   max_input_vars = 2000

   extension=php_curl.dll
   extension=php_mbstring.dll
   extension=php_exif.dll
   extension=php_gd2.dll
   extension=php_ldap.dll
   extension=php_mysqli.dll
   
   session.save_path = "C:\PHP\session"

   session.use_cookies = 1

   fastcgi.impersonate = 1
   cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1
   cgi.force_redirect = 0
   

   Extensions Loading Order
   

   It is required to load "php_mbstring.dll" extension before "php_exif.dll". Make sure that order of these two extensions in your php.ini is the same as shown above.

5. Create "upload" and "session" sub-directories in the C:\PHP\ directory. You can use different names, just make sure that they match upload_tmp_dir and session.save_path parameters that you've set in the php.ini. 
6. Setup date.timezone parameter in php.ini, for example:
   
   date.timezone = "America/New_York"
   

   Chose your city or at least a city from your time zone.

   You can find the full list of possible date.timezone values on PHP.net website.
   
   
7. Save the php.ini.
8. To test if the PHP installation is successful, run the following from the command line prompt:
   
   C:\PHP>php -i
   
   
   If PHP Fails to Start

   VC9 Versions are compiled with the Visual Studio 2008 compiler and have improvements in performance and stability. The VC9 versions require you to have the Microsoft 2008 C++ Runtime (x86)  or the Microsoft 2008 C++ Runtime (x64)  installed. You may need to download these extensions on old versions of Windows if PHP is unable to start.

Manually Configuring FastCGI Extension to Work with PHP

To manually configure the IIS and FastCGI extension, you must create script mappings for the PHP extension in the IIS metabase and modify fcgiext.ini file located in %WINDIR%\system32\inetsrv.

Create script mapping