Installing a PHP extension

On Windows, you have two ways to load a PHP extension: either compile it into PHP, or load the DLL. Loading a precompiled extension is the easiest and preferred way.

To load an extension, you need to have it available as a ".dll" file on your system. All the extensions are automatically and periodically compiled by the PHP Group (see next section for the download).

To compile an extension into PHP, please refer to building from source documentation.

To compile a standalone extension (aka a DLL file), please refer to building from source documentation. If the DLL file is available neither with your PHP distribution nor in PECL, you may have to compile it before you can start using the extension.