Opening files with Windows XP

[ClintC]

I have coded PHP for remote servers for a while now and wanted to be able to view them on my personal computer.

I seem to have successfully installed IIS under XP as well as PHP 5.0.2 becuase when I open a web page by typing "http://127.0.0.1/phpinfodisplay.php" into the address bar of my browser I get a page display with both html and php code.

However, if I tell the browser to open this file or click on it from Windows Explorer, the way I usually open html files to quickly view them, I seem to get a dos window open which flashes some code by so quickly I can't read it and then nothing in the browser.

What am I missing to be able to use this techique (i.e. open a php file) and have it correctly parsed for display?

[devinemke]

PHP is a server-side scripting language and as such must be parsed by the server. if you simply double click a PHP file in explorer the server is out of the loop. if you want to be able to view the source code of a PHP file then alter you file associtaions to have PHP "open with" your text editor (like notepad).