COM surrogate error using PHP with IIS

I have recently installed PHP (latest version 5.1.6) on my laptop (XP pro SP2, IIS 5.1), and every time I call a .php page from a browser (IE or Firefox) using [url]http://localhost/test.php[/url] the page displays fine, but a couple of seconds later I get one of MSFT’s infamous message dialogs saying “COM surrogate has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.” Then it prompts me to send an error report to MSFT (which I have ignored so far). If I investigate the error report text further I find that the fault lies with “dllHost.exe ver.5.1.2600.2180, faulting module unknown”.

Under ‘System Events’ I get the message “Out of process application /LM/W3SVC/1/ROOT terminated unexpectedly”. File name W3SVC.dll

If I refresh the page I get a server error “The remote procedure call failed and did not execute.”, but when I refresh again the .php page displays fine, but the “COM surrogate…” error dialog appears again, and so on. It’s a real pain.

I guess the problem lies with IIS configuration, but I have no idea where to start. The default website has the .php extension associated with c:phpphp5isapi.dll, ALL methods selected.

ASP pages seem to display ok, without any problems (classic, not .net, although I do have the .net framework installed on the pc).

Any help would be appreciated.

Alan

Also in #PHP _↴