XAMPP: how to configure Apache for PHP

My XAMPP is not reading my PHP. Probably, there's a problem with my Apache configuration. My PHP book suggested that I open the httpd configuration file and add these lines:

LoadModule php5_module c:/php/php5apache2_2.dll  
PHPIniDir "c:/php/"  
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php

Which I did, but when I went back to the control panel to turn Apache back on, I couldn't get the running sign by it. I figured that this was because my PHP doesn't think I'm using XAMPP. I tried the following instead:

LoadModule php5_module c:/xampp/php/php5apache2_2.dll  
PHPIniDir "c:/xampp/php/"  
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php

But the problem isn't solved (PHP still doesn't work, I can't get the running sign by Apache in the control panel). What should I do? I'm using Windows 7, if it matters.

After uninstalling XAMPP and deleting the directory, I encountered the same problem. Here's the most recent error log:

[Fri Oct 15 19:44:00 2010] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication ...  
[Fri Oct 15 19:44:00 2010] [notice] Digest: done  
[Fri Oct 15 19:44:00 2010] [notice] Apache/2.2.14 (Win32) DAV/2 mod_ssl/2.2.14   OpenSSL/0.9.8l mod_autoindex_color PHP/5.3.1 mod_apreq2-20090110/2.7.1 mod_perl/2.0.4 Perl/v5.10.1 configured -- resuming normal operations  
[Fri Oct 15 19:44:00 2010] [notice] Server built: Nov 11 2009 14:29:03  
[Fri Oct 15 19:44:00 2010] [notice] Parent: Created child process 912  
[Fri Oct 15 19:44:03 2010] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication ...  
[Fri Oct 15 19:44:03 2010] [notice] Digest: done  
[Fri Oct 15 19:44:04 2010] [notice] Child 912: Child process is running  
[Fri Oct 15 19:44:04 2010] [notice] Child 912: Acquired the start mutex.  
[Fri Oct 15 19:44:04 2010] [notice] Child 912: Starting 150 worker threads.  
[Fri Oct 15 19:44:04 2010] [notice] Child 912: Starting thread to listen on port 443.  
[Fri Oct 15 19:44:04 2010] [notice] Child 912: Starting thread to listen on port 8开发者_Python百科0.  

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If you are using XAMPP, which you downloaded from their site, PHP should be working right out of the box. You can always try downloading it again from source forge. You can always look in the error log for the error.

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Make sure you are not running another copy of XAMPP or any other server, This can cause conflict.

Make sure port 80 which is used by Apache by default is not being used by other app such as Skype etc.

As colum said, xammp should work out of the box and php already working.

Create a test php page like this one and put it in htdocs folder

<?php
echo "PHP works";
?>

If you can go to the admin page, there is a link php.info. See if it works.