Standalone PHP on WinXP?

[netbros]

Hi all,

I'm running a copy of PHP 4.0.6 on Windows XP with Apache 1.3.14.

I need to run a script as a standalone, running in the background. I've tried all sorts of options, with some interesting results...

If I execute a PHP file using the exec () function, nothing happens - the script doesn't seem to run at all.

If, however, I call c:/apache/php/php.exe script-name.php, my PC goes crazy and spawns a hundred copies of cmd.exe and php.exe and continues either until the script times out or I close Apache.

Are there any other solutions out there for running a command line script in the background on WinXP? I've heard of php-cli.exe, but am not sure where to get it or if it'll be any better than php.exe which I've got.

Thanks for the help!

-- John G