Win xp, Apache2.x, PHP4.x, problems testing php or posibly not installed correctly

[Ronanmckibbin]

I have installed Apache2.x on windows XP and PHP-4.3.1-win32 the server starts Ok (I think)and I'm able to view html files but when I try my PHP test file containing:
<?php
phpinfo();
?>
saved as a .php file.
I enter my IP address, eg.172.183.203.136/test.php
and up pops a dialog box asking me if I want to save the file "test.tar"
Iwas thinking posibly my: doc_root ="c:\ProgramFiles\ApacheGroup\Apache2\htdocs" is wrong or I have put the test.php in the wrong folder, it is in the htdocs.
Can you help me?
Thanks
Ronan

[qball]

Did you follow the instuctions to install the PHP module on Apache? Read install.txt in the PHP install folder.

What url do you use to serve straight html files? Suppose you have index.htm in drive:\inetpub\wwwroot, and the server seems to find ok. Put php file in there and see if it actually executes the PHP, at worst it should display the php, which indicates PHP not installed or configured in Apache correctly. When you config apache for PHP, you will also need to set the folder/directory execute settings to allow it to run PHP.

Hope this helps...

[shotokan]

Try this. It's called Indigo Perl, its what i used on my XP machine to get PHP, Perl and Apache 2.0.44 running properly. Its an excellent distro of these. Download the zip-->extract it-->run setup.bat-->reboot and presto it all works.