Problem opening .php file with Apache

[browny]

Hi all
I am having a problem opening .php extension files using Apache in a Windows XP Home environment.  I have installed Apache 2.2.3 and PHP 5.2.0.  I got Apache working ok using localhost as the home directory and it opened the index.html file ok.  I created a file test.php that had the command below in it:
<?php
phpinfo();
?>
I placed it in the htdocs folder, pointed IE to it (http//:localhost/test.php) and it started opening the page displaying the PHP information but then gave an error that the Apache HTTP server encountered and error and had to shut down. (Error notes below)
This was stated as the technical information of the fault C:\DOCUME~1\Me\LOCALS~1\Temp\WERa88e.dir00\httpd.exe.mdmp
C:\DOCUME~1\Me\LOCALS~1\Temp\WERa88e.dir00\appcompat.txt
This was the error signature
szAppName : httpd.exe     szAppVer : 2.2.3.0     szModName : php5ts.dll     
szModVer : 5.2.0.0     offset : 00097d80     
I had a similar problem yesterday and the Apache error logs recorded these 2 errors
Error 1
[Sat Nov 04 17:33:49 2006] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] PHP Fatal error:  Nesting level too deep - recursive dependency? in Unknown on line 0, referer: http://localhost/test.php
Error 2
[Fri Nov 03 23:50:52 2006] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] PHP Strict Standards:  phpinfo() [<a href='function.phpinfo'>function.phpinfo</a>]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'Pacific/Auckland' for '13.0/DST' instead in C:\\Apache2\\htdocs\\test.php on line 2
Apache did not shut down but said the test.php page could not be displayed.  Apache was then slow in opening any of the files in the htdocs folder unless I restarted it. 
Because of Error 2 , I went into the php.ini file and added the following line to try and set the date_timezone setting, this did not work. 
date_default_timezone_set("Pacific/Auckland");
I got the following error “Error parsing C:\PHP\php.ini on line 672”
I’m unsure what to do next as I do not know if this is the problem or there is something else I have missed.
Any help appreciated
Thanks in advance
Craig

[browny]

Hi everyone
I have not solved this problem but have found the best solution for my requirements at this time to be the Erfan Server.  The work I am doing is mainly experimental development of small applications and the Erfan Server suits this well.  At some point I will need to set Apache up with PHP and MySQL but for now this solution suit me.
The Erfan server can be found at http://www.dev-tips.org/index.php?title=ERFAN_Server
Regards
Craig