windows 2003 server, iis6, php5

hi,
i've read several posts about win2003/iis6 problems, especially the can't find db.inc.php and blank pages after install. here's what i had to do to get the free version running for our evaluation.

i used the ioncube version to evaluate. rather than fuss with the php.ini calling the ioncube_loader_win_5.1.dll from some location i downloaded the windows ioncube loader installer and after running it i see the registry keys for ioncube. and the loader-helper says things are okay w/o php.ini mods.

earlier i tried the zend_extensions_ts = location in php.ini and the loader-helper confirmed it was okay, i just prefer the installer. the reason being is that iis6 seems to be really fussy about where it loads .dll files from. it can't be any arbitrary location and i didn't want to clutter up the \windows\system32 folder.

in iis6 admin configured the snippetmaster folder to use a separate app space from the main website. in this discrete space i have .php extensions run the php-cgi.exe rather than the php5isapi.dll.

in web services extensions i already had one called php5 to permit the .dll to execute for normal php pages. i added php-cgi.exe in that extension.

for the db.ini.php it was really strange. i have to place the file in the folder that contains the site with snippetmaster. so it ends up being two levels higher than i expected it to be. but that's where the snippets-db info gets written to and the evaluation copy is running okay.

our environment is windows 2003 server, iis6, php 5.1.2 (plus the ioncube loader via windows installer). we are pretty much a windows/asp shop but now and then i get to evaluate other neat things.

i hope that this helps a bit.