Hello Richard, First of all you are asking some questions interesting, but in a level where it isn't clear if you understand how server side and client side languages and processes interact and how php and apache work. If you could write back telling your experienses and what you are or are not familiar with then I can give you a better feedback. Your questions about php not being backwards compatible and such is important, as neither php nor mysql nor apache are totally backwards compatible, and deppending on what you're doing you could have problems coding for a platform and delivering to another. When you're developing a costumer stuff you have to ask him where the site will be hosted and accessed for. If they don't have hte knowledge to tell this or if this decision is up to you as the webmaster then you will have to decide in what isp you will host it, and you have to replicate the more possible the same enviroment the host will support. I don't know exactly if apache will run on windows xp home edition, but I think this is possible. But if you're running it on a server edition then perhaps apache will conflict with iis, which will probably be listening to incoming connections on port 80, the same of apache. Anyways, it's enough information for now, The questions will be better replayed when you replay my questions. I suggest you go take a close look at php, perl, server side programming and understand well what is going on before trying to develope stuff for clients. Web programming is pretty different from desktop programming, what is going on in both cases is different and a web programmer needs to take in acount security aspects and such things which can interfer with their work at all. hth Marlon 2008/2/11, Richard Thomas <rthomas@xxxxxxxxxxx>: > Hi Guys: -- When you say "I wrote a program that crashed Windows," people just stare at you blankly and say "Hey, I got those with the system, for free." Linus Torvalds __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind