PHP 4

The PHP MySQL extension is compiled into PHP.

PHP 5.0.x, 5.1.x, 5.2.x

MySQL is no longer enabled by default, so the php_mysql.dll DLL must be enabled inside of php.ini. Also, PHP needs access to the MySQL client library. A file named libmysql.dll is included in the Windows PHP distribution and in order for PHP to talk to MySQL this file needs to be available to the Windows systems PATH. See the FAQ titled "How do I add my PHP directory to the PATH on Windows" for information on how to do this. Although copying libmysql.dll to the Windows system directory also works (because the system directory is by default in the system's PATH), it's not recommended.

As with enabling any PHP extension (such as php_mysql.dll), the PHP directive extension_dir should be set to the directory where the PHP extensions are located. See also the Manual Windows Installation Instructions. An example extension_dir value for PHP 5 is c:\php\ext

Note:

If when starting the web server an error similar to the following occurs: "Unable to load dynamic library './php_mysql.dll'", this is because php_mysql.dll and/or libmysql.dll cannot be found by the system.

PHP 5.3.0+

The MySQL Native Driver is enabled by default. Include php_mysql.dll, but libmysql.dll is no longer required or used.