Unable to load XSLT extension on Win2K/Apache 1.3 install

[kswartz]

I've been wrestling with this for a few weeks now, and keep thinking it's just a one-time thing, but now I'm wracking my brain trying to get this to work on any of several machines.

Problem: When trying to load the php_xslt.dll in php.ini, Apache gives me a warning on startup saying it cannot load the DLL. It gives the complete and exact path to the file where it is, but for some reason refuses to load it.

I also can't load php_iconv.dll, leading me to believe there is a possible conspiracy. I can load php_domxml.dll, however, and a few other extensions I've tried, such as php_pdf.dll, php_snmp.dll, and php_zip.dll.

It's a Windows 2000 machine running Apache 1.3.x and PHP 4.2.3 (or 4.3.1, doesn't seem to matter). I've followed all the directions to install the two. I've copied php.ini to my WINNT directory, and specified the full path to the extensions directory using double quotes, and ending the line in a backslash, e.g.:

extension_dir = "D:\Program Files\Merlin Server\php\extensions\"

I've also tried using the shortname, I've tried copying the DLL to the winnt\system32 directory...no luck. And I've tried copying iconv.dll, sablot.dll, and libxml2.dll all to my WINNT\system32 directory...also not helpful.

The problem reproduces on a couple of different machines, whether I use the PHP 4.2.3 distribution OR the PHP 4.3.1 distribution. What am I missing?

TIA...

[kswartz]

Well, crap, it figures that after toying with this for weeks, I finally post the question...and figure it out on my own.

Solution: you need to copy all of the following files into your Windows path (e.g.: \WINNT\System32):

• sablot.dll
• iconv.dll
• libxml2.dll
• expat.dll

In the end, it was the last one that I had forgotten.

Imagine a day when "Unable to load DLL" actually told you the dependent DLL that was missing, rather than erroring out on the one trying to be loaded. Ah, what a wonderful world that would be.