Managing Multiple PHP Versions with PHP Manager for IIS 7
Some time back I wrote a post about how to run multiple PHP versions on the same server with IIS (Running Multiple PHP Versions with IIS). While running multiple PHP versions wasn’t complicated, it wasn’t a no-brainer either. Today, Ruslan Yakushev (a Program Manager on the IIS team at Microsoft), announced the beta release the PHP Manager project on CodePlex: PHP Manager for IIS 7 – beta release. Not only does the PHP Manager make it a no-brainer to run different PHP versions side-by-side on IIS, it makes it easy to register PHP with IIS, configure various PHP settings, enable/disable PHP extensions, remotely manage PHP configuration via the php.ini file, and check the PHP runtime configuration and environment (i.e. see the output of phpinfo()). Read his announcement for a complete tour of this release (and provide feedback!). I’ll just take a quick look at how easy it is to get multiple PHP versions running in this post.
1. One thing the PHP Manager doesn’t do for you is download and install PHP, so you’ll have to do that yourself (for now, at least). You can download your versions of PHP 5.2 and 5.3 for Windows here: http://windows.php.net/download/. Once you have done that, you are set to use the PHP Manager.
2. After you have followed Ruslan’s instructions for downloading/installing the PHP Manager and started IIS Manager, move to site-level management by clicking on Default Web Site, then start the PHP Manager by clicking on it’s icon:
3. Now click on Register New PHP Version to select the PHP installation you want to handle PHP page requests for this site:
4. After you have browsed to the php-cgi.exe of your choice and clicked OK, you can now check your configuration (Check phpinfo()), manage settings, and enable/disable extensions.
5. To run another version of PHP on this server, add a new website by clicking on Sites in the IIS Manager, and selecting Add Web Site:
6. After you have set up a new site, follow steps 2 through 4 using a different version of PHP.
Obviously, you can add more sites/PHP versions if you want to, but otherwise, that’s all there is to it. If you have a chance to check out PHP Manager, we’d love to get your feedback here, http://phpmanager.codeplex.com/discussions, and your bug reports here, http://phpmanager.codeplex.com/workitem/list/basic.
Thanks.
-Brian