CGI vs ISAPI?

[Cynthia Blue]

Hello, I'm a complete newb to PHP and MySQL... I started my own server a couple of months ago, wanting to host my own sites on my own box. I'm having a great time but there are some things I'm still figuring out.

I run a W2K Server box with IIS5. I've been getting a Stop error that shuts down my box and reboots. I ran the dskchk, and it seemed to have fixed some files.

Anyway, I've been told that the ISAPI with IIS5 can be unstable...

What exactly is the difference between CGI and ISAPI? And how easily would it be to change from one to the other? And how do I see, on my box, which version I'm running?

Thanks.
Cyn

[Cynthia Blue]

No one knows?

[edwardsbc]

The ISAPI verision of PHP is a "run once" module for IIS. The CGI version is completely external to IIS and is run each time a PHP file must be parsed.

Obviously, the ISAPI version is faster, particularly under load. However, as the ISAPI version interacts with the internals of IIS there is a potential for problems. Knowing Micro$oft software, I would attribute most of the problems with the PHP/ISAPI module to bad behaviour within IIS code. I use the ISAPI module regularly, and I do rarely have IIS crashes when accessing PHP pages. Because the source is not available, the PHP coders can only conform to the published ISAPI specifications (which I'm sure they have to the best of their ability).

(Using IIS 4.0)
To tell if you are running CGI or ISAPI, open the Internet Service Manger, hilite your root web site, right click and ask for properties. Under the Home Directory tab click on configuration button. Here you will see a mapping for files with the .php extension. If the file is php4isapi.dll you are using the ISAPI version. If it is php.exe you are using the CGI version.

[Cynthia Blue]

Thank you!