Apache isn't cooperating

Won't start, same old message over and over again.

[Hanaryu]

I'm new to Apache, and because of this I'm having a lot of problems. After several hours of installing, carefully following these instructions: [thesitewizard.com...] word for word. I had everything running seemingly problem free. However, after copying the conf and htdocs files, it told me to delete the originals, but before I do this it tells me to turn off Apache. If I do, I cannot restart it and it will keep giving me the message: "The Requested Operation failed!" if I don't, it will turn it off when I try to access something later in the command prompt and will also give me the same message when I try to start it again. I've been trying to get it to work for 8 hours, and have searched everywhere online for the answer but everyone else who has gotten that message didn't have the solution I needed. When I looked at the error log it said nothing until when I tried to enter something on the control prompt it turned itself off, and gave me this:

httpd.exe: Could not open configuration file C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/conf/httpd.conf: The system cannot find the path specified.
[Sat Oct 17 19:26:09 2009] [warn] (OS 995)The I/O operation has been aborted because of either a thread exit or an application request. : winnt_accept: Asynchronous AcceptEx failed.

I'm trying to configure it with php5.2, and haven't even tried installing mySQL yet but that's (hopefully) next on my list once (if) I fix this. Several times I've had to reinstall the program, making sure the previous program is completely removed first.
If it's a stupid mistake I'm missing because I'm new to this, or something quite common, I'd appreciate some help to get rid of the headache it's giving me. Thanks.

[phparion]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld!

in step # 4, can you see apache-feather icon in system tray? can you right click on it and check service if it is running or not?

I think your apache is running as a service, long the days gone when I used to work in PHP on windows (and I do not use Vista :) ) but as far as I remember about this problem, you need to KILL your apache service.

CTRL + ALT + DEL and open the TASK MANAGER. Kill the apache.exe or httpd.exe etc by right click and End Process Tree. Then check if your apache-feather icon goes red/disabled. Even when you mouseover after killing service it might disappear from system tray.

what you can try is to reinstall Apache but do not run it as a windows service. That might help.

[edit]

and if you are using PHP5.3.0 then let me tell you, you might run into troubles while installing MySQL as it has some problem with MySQL. I think, currently MySQL works well with php5.2.x

However, I am not sure, you can give it a try.

[Hanaryu]

The icon is in the tray, yes. It is currently not running, because I cannot turn it back on. I have several times turned it off from the task manager, but it doesn't seem to help any, plus I've uninstalled and reinstalled at least three times, but I'm not sure how to not run it as a windows service- could you tell me?

Thanks, I'll keep the 5.2.x version than.

[phparion]

Did you try killing the apache process from task manager and then restarting apache from menu?

I think you SHOULD NOT RUN apache as a service on your machine unless you are hosting some website from it. I have always seen that when you run apache as a service it gives lots of troubles in installing other softwares because they need to modify the apache configuration and apache is already running and hence retaliating against changes.

just because of this complexity of installing php environment / apache on windows, softwares like wamp and xamp are so famous. But I do not encourage you to use these softwares. You can keep trying, there must be a way a to install apache 2.2 on vista.

Please try this article [senese.wordpress.com...] (@forum Moderator: please do not erase the URL, he really needs it)

I hope it helps.

[mylhat]

It looks like apache is upset it can't read it's configuration file. Apache errors out on start if it can't find it's configuration or document roots. After making the symbolic link in step 4, can you open C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/conf/httpd.conf ? If you can't then the link creation failed and apache can't find it's conf file. If you can, check the permissions on the symbolic link, apache may not be able to follow it. Looking at these instructions step 4 isn't really necessary. All it seems to do is put the conf folder on your desktop so you can edit it directly there instead of navigating down the tree to C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/conf.

[Hanaryu]

Thanks Phparion! That guide did help, and mylhat as well, that bit is what made me understand why it worked that time.