OK. Simple situation. I have a (big) Windows 2003 R2 server running IIS.

I have php 5.2.5 installed and running. A simple index.php page with the basic info command confirms that php is running happily.

I have MySQL 5.x (current release) installed and running as a service.

I have the php.ini file in the Windows/System32 directory, and I have made the appropriate changes to ensure that the extensions_dir points the the correct php extension folder, and that the MySQL extensions have been enable.

I have restarted IIS and even restarted the server, however php refuses to see the MySQL installation.

I have read several different guides, and all basically concur on the approach taken, and what I have done to date matches these guides. The final step is to install Joomla. I have the files in the correct place, and I can launch the install page, however as I progress through I get to the validation of the components, and MySQL is not recognised, so the installation cannot progress. I have checked and rechecked paths, confirmed files are where they should be, that services are running, but I cannot get php to see the mysql installation.

So what have I missed ?

I would appreciate any suggestions, however there is one key stipulation - this must run under IIS, so please don't suggest setting up apache.

Thanks in anticipation.

Edit : did a bit more digging and found a reference to copying libmysql.dll to the c:\windows\ folder solving this problem for someone else. I didn't like this solution, but it lead me to recheck my PATH environment variable, where I found that the php folder wasn't referenced. I added it in, restarted the web services, and mysql is now recognised.