I have been trying to use php on my computer but i cannot seem to get Apache2 work with PHP5.
Apache works fine by itself but when i edit the configuration file, the server crashes upon restart. When i comment out the Loadmodule line the server works but without the php support.
Any ideas, tutorials or suggestions?

i have face this problem my self and still till now trying to find some toturials on how to set them both on my machine IIS5.1 and every time i try to run it ... Crash.. i have aleady tried php site manual and didnt figure anything out and if you or any1 have and idea or know how please post it here ..

If it's just for testing purposes, may I suggest you download and install easyphp.
It comes with everything packaged in, you click install and it installs a working config on your PC, with the web server, php and mysql, you can use it to test your own programs or to learn how to install packages like 4images gallery or phpbb3 forum. Jus try it, it's harmless for you computer if you don't like it you uninstall it.

well that's sounds great ,i have tried alot to test my site on IIS and learn some PHP and SQL on my own too but nothing and i have already tried up to 114 free php hosting site and each one of them was complex and hard to use no mention the FTP manager which are slow .
and if so you recommend it ,what is the website so i can download it??

With the current versions of the Apache2 and PHP4 I can't seem to install everything by myself too, when I try to load the php4 module it says that it can't find the module when I try to start it through run->cmd, I used to install a lot of times before, all the paths seemed to be ok. But when I uninstalled everything and installed older versions which I had and everything worked perfectly again. I remember everytime I install apache, mysql, php, zend and everytime I had a different problem, due to everytime I used newer versions of that software, but oh well, if you want to avoid problems and don't want to have different issues like that and don't want to read tutorials when use easyphp.

You have easy php from here : http://www.easyphp.org/?lang=en
It comes with everything packed in : webserver, php and mysql. Just click on install and everything is configuring and working alltogether, no additional config to be done, no additional modules to be added nor activated.

HOOAH!!!!! thanks alot .... it's working perfectly on My IIS server. and now i can freely test my website on it not like the application i had before which's like looking at 3 monitors in the same time .

great ! And as soon as your application will be completely tested on your system, you can ftp your app at astahost and test it as your visitors will see it.
Remember, at astahost most of the settings are the same as on your pc: the hostname is "localhost", etc...
Nice to have been helpful.
Regards
Yordan

Yeah i have been trying out easyPHP for a while now. It may not be up to date but it does the work good enough.
Only one con (i don't know if it is a con or not but) i cannot change the state of register_globals.
So i have to type
--------
if (isset($_GET['foo'])){
$foo=$_GET['foo'];
}
else {
$foo="";
}
--------
it says they did it for security reasons so i think it is good this way. Just a little coding work.

Actually, I have a guess about what might've been your problem with the seperate Apache2 and PHP5 installations. I've run into a similar error many times in the past and it usually is resolved by satisfying the dependencies of the various PHP5 modules. Some PHP modules have addition DLL files that they need to function properly. Most of these DLL files are in the root PHP folder, you should copy them to "C:\Windows\System32\" or edit your system PATH variable to include the PHP folder, but the latter method is less recommended. If it still doesn't work try disabling and all your modules and running the web server, and if this works, enable the modules one-by-one to see which one was giving your the problems. PHP fails to load when it can't run all of the enabled modules. To disable/enable modules check your "php.ini" file.