problem with imap libraries

[tingy98]

I'm a newbie to php and programming, so any advice would be much appreciated.

I'm trying to configure php so that it will include imap functions.
I use windows xp home and xampp to deal with apache, mysql, php etc..

I've followed the instructions ie get the php_imap.dll file from your PHP download extensions directory and copied it to my PHP extension directory. Then i opened the php.ini and removed the semicolon from ";extension=php_imap.dll"

I then test for imap support using <?php echo phpinfo(); ?> and the page shows no indication of anything related to imap. Do i have to download the c libraries, if so- how do i compile/install them on windoews? or do i need Windows 2000 NT?

Many thanks
Ting

[LordShryku]

Did you restart Apache?

[tingy98]

i did restart apache, i think I need a mail server - do i need one? and doesn't windows xp home have one already?

are there any you can recommend that i can install easily on windows?

again, any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

tingy