Browser tries to download php file

I have recently installed php 5.2.4 on my Windows XP machine using the MSI installer, and specifying a Apache 2.2 configuration. The install went without error, restarted my server without error, however, when I browse to a test php file the browser tries to download it. I have searched extensively on this to no avail.

any suggestions on what might be wrong?

TIA

The symptom means that the web server was not setup to parse php files through the php language engine.

I only tried the msi installer version once, and since it did not provide adequate feedback as to what it was doing or going to do to an existing installation, I canceled it. I only know of one other person in the programming forums that I frequent that has used it and he had problems with installing the external language extensions.

If the automatic installer did not work, you are going to need to learn how to install php manually (or use one of the all in one Apache/php/mysql installers like Apache friends - http://www.apachefriends.org/en/index.html).

See the install.txt file that comes with php or the installation section of the php manual on how to manually install php for the web server and operating system combination you have.