Upgrading PHP in XAMPP for Windows?

Question

Take a backup of your htdocs and data folder (subfolder of MySQL folder), reinstall upgraded version and replace those folders.

Note: In case you have changed config files like PHP (php.ini), Apache (httpd.conf) or any other, please take back up of those files as well and replace them with newly installed version.

You can go through the following link as it helped me, should work for you as well. http://hype-free.blogspot.com/2007/07/updating-php-in-xampp-for-windows.html

Realizing that my answer helped couple of users, here is the edit from original link:

Edit:

First of all Always backup your data.

1. Download the latest binary version of PHP (make sure to get the .zip package not the installer)
2. De-archive it to a directory
3. Overwrite the contents of directory in the php subfolder of your XAMPP installation directory.
4. Overwrite the contents of the directory apache\bin with the newer versions.
5. Now the trick: take the files which have a '_2' in their names (for example php5apache2_2.dll or php5apache2_2_filter.dll), copy them in the apache\bin subdirectory and remove the '_2' part, overwriting the existing files. This is necessary because by XAMPP uses Apache version 2.2 and the files with the 2 prefix are built for Apache 2.0, so you must take the files build for the newer version (which has a different plugin interface) and rename them in the filenames XAMPP expects.

NOTE: there are two directories to be updated with new version of files, namely php sub-directory and apache/bin sub-directory, inside XAMPP installation.

Simplest method to upgrade PHP in XAMPP:

1. Download latest portable version of XAMPP.
2. Extract the archive(not where XAMPP already installed).
3. Copy the PHP folder from the extracted archive.
4. Keep back up of PHP folder which is in installed XAMPP directory. You can backup it like changing the PHP folder name to PHP-old or like PHP-version-number
5. Paste the PHP folder which you copied from the extracted archive.
6. Replace the php.ini file with your backup folder php.ini file in case you have changed the default settings earlier.
7. That's all, start/restart the server.

I needed to update my php from 5.3.8 to 5.3.29. (both Thread Safe) on Windows

Steps I did:

1. Back-up my initial php folder, under xampp.
2. Downloaded zip from here http://windows.php.net/download/#php-5.3-ts-VC9-x86
3. Unpack that zip into xampp folder.
4. Copied php.ini file from old php folder into new one.
5. Copied a couple of folders that I didn't have in the new php folder, from old one. For example: extras, which contained browscap.ini file (this one is needed)
6. Copied needed extensions, from old php ext folder into new php ext folder. I copied them manually, by checking list of extensions from php.ini file.
7. Copied also these files: php5apache2_2.dll, php5ts.dll

Hope that I covered everything.

Most probably these steps will not work if you change major versions of php, e.g. 5.3.x to 5.4.x, but for minor versions, it should work.

Also, a good way to see what's wrong... start command line and try to start httpd.exe, under xampp/apache/bin from there, it will list errors found.

I have upgraded to php7.2 from php5.6

Steps which I followed.

1. Download PHP binary from here. I have downloaded VC15 x86 Thread Safe Zip file.
2. Created a backup of xampp/php folder.
3. Extract all the contents of zip file to xampp/php folder.
4. Copied php.ini (as I have modified it before and I want my configuration back, if you were using default one then skip this step.)
5. Edit below file

C:\xampp\apache\conf\extra\http-xampp.conf

5.1. Replace

LoadFile "C:/xampp/php/php5ts.dll"

LoadFile "C:/xampp/php/libpq.dll"

LoadModule php5_module "C:/xampp/php/php5apache2_4.dll"

to

LoadFile "C:/xampp/php/php7ts.dll"

LoadFile "C:/xampp/php/libpq.dll"

LoadModule php7_module "C:/xampp/php/php7apache2_4.dll"

6. Restart Apache

I think you need to actually download and install XAMPP with the desired PHP version. I dont think you can just upgrade the components of XAMPP individually unless there is a facility provided for this within XAMPP itself.

download your desired version of php binary from http://windows.php.net/download/ website. download Thread Safe binary zip version. Unzip the downloaded version of the PHP in a separate folder. Please make sure that your new php folder name is not "PHP". May be you can use filder name as the version name. For example for php 5.4 you can use php54.

Copy the new php folder into your xampp folder. Now go to yourxampp/apache/conf/extra folder. Open file httpd-xampp.conf from the folder extra. Change the following variables:

Variable PHPINIDir to be / Varaible LoadModule to be //php5apache2_2.dl

Save the file httpd-xampp.conf. Restart your XAMPP apache server. If your server get restarted successfully then your server php version is upgraded.