PHPMyAdmin Windows XAMPP Missing MySQL Extension Issue

Question

I've tried install Apache, PHP, MySQL, and PHPMyAdmin manually and got the error. Then tried XAMPP and still got the error this error with PHPMyAdmin:

The mysql extension is missing. Please check your PHP configuration. <a href="Documentation.html#faqmysql" target="documentation"><img class="icon" src="./themes/pmahomme/img/b_help.png" width="11" height="11" alt="Documentation" title="Documentation" /></a>

I'm clueless of what the issue is. I've tried solutions on the web and none worked so far. This is a new Windows installation and I installed XAMPP on C:.

Answer 1

Fairly simple fix. Find your PHP.ini file, and in it there will be a list of extensions. Look for the one that says mysql and take the ; off the front of the line.

;extension=php_mysql.dll
;extension=php_mysqli.dll
;extension=php_pdo_mysql.dll

If you don't know where your PHP.ini file resides, you can put this code in a script to find out:

phpinfo()

Answer 2

If after you've removed the semi-colons you STILL get this error. Your extension_dir value in php.ini may be the problem simply point the value to extension_dir = "C:\php\ext" (or wherever you store your php modules), restart your server and you should be fine.