Help!!! php.ini not being recognized

[jeebus]

The whole site works perfectly fine. If I make any changes in my php.ini file and run phpinfo, phpinfo doesn't show my changes. My main concern is the mail server. I spent countless hours making sure everything is correct and it is. It basically boils down to php. When I change my smtp setting in php.ini it doesn't show the changes when I run phpinfo. So basically I can't get my site to send mail. Please help. Here is some info. I installed phpdev on WinXP. I don't think this should matter any as my friend has the same setup and his works. I've checked everything.

[Anon]

replacing php.ini with a new ini file

[jeebus]

It seems like if I rename php.ini to say php.bak.ini under the c:/winnt folder it doesn't matter. Everything still works. No matter what I do to php.ini some how php is still getting the information from somewhere. I really don't get it. When I run phpinfo at the top it says it's using the php.ini file in the c:/winnt folder. As I said no matter what I do nothing changes. I've tried replacing the php.ini file with a new one it still doesn't make a difference.

[Anon]

If you are using Apache, you have to restart it after every change for the php.ini to take effect.

[jeebus]

Ok this is what's happening now. I removed the php.ini file out of the c:/winnt directory and placed it on my desktop. I then closed Apache then rebooted the server. Once the server came back up I started apache and mysql up again and brought up EI and typed localhost. This brought up my webpage no problems at all. then I went to the phpinfo file i have on the servers root and it displayed all the same info, being that it's looking in to c:/winnt for the php.ini. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE THERE IS NO PHP.INI FILE IN THE C:/WINNT FOLDER. AAHHHHHH.