PHP MSSQL Connect Not Working

I have Lighttpd running on my personal windows 7 computer that I use for testing and development. I have a windows VPS that has SQL Server 2008 that I need to connect to. I've already opened port 1433 to my IP and it seems I telnet into it just fine as my CMD prompt just goes blank and then comes back after a couple minutes.

On Win 7 Client running Lighttpd:

1. I've enabled php_mssql.dll in php.ini
2. I've added php_sqlsrv_52_ts_vc6.dll to my ext/ and to php.ini that I downloaded from MS.

But,
I still can't connect. I get just the general Unable to Connect to server warning. I can connect to MySQL on port 3306 so with MSSQL it's some type of configuration.

a.) my server name - with MySQL I just need the IP and it autoresolves the port, but with MSSQL I've tried IP, IP\Computername, IP:port, IP\Computername:port, IP\Computername,port , and IP,port. What would be the correct servername I should use?
b.) I've also created a db user in Plesk. When connecting remotely do I have to use "sa"?

Lastly, is there something I'm missing or more I can try on my client/server setup?

After 2 days, I finally made the connection.

1. The servername only needed the ip address, port resolved automatically.

2. I had to install Microsoft SQL Server Client Tools. I chose 2008 packages cause I'm connecting to 2008. This can be downloaded standalone using the feature pack url. The client tools are required. I just went ahead and installed the full version with the SDK as if I was running Management Studio. The SQL driver for PHP is also listed on that page which gives you the ext/ dlls for php, but I already had those installed. Those will need to be downloaded and the correct .dll will need to be copied to your ext/ folder and added to your modules in php.ini. You will also need php_mssql.dll in your ext/ folder and activate it in your php.ini.

3. I then had to log onto my server and located my ntwdblib.dll file. It was actually in the WINDOWS\SysWOW64 folder on my Win2003. I made a copy and emailed it to myself.

4. On my Win7 client that's running lighttpd and php I copied the ntwdblib.dll I emailed myself to the WLMP\PHP\ folder overwriting the existing one that came with the Lighty installation. (I made a backup of the current one before overwriting). I also copied the ntwdblib.dll file to the WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 folder.

5. Double checked that the firewall on the server had port 1433 opened to me. I had some networking buddies tell me to open 1434 monitoring port too just in case, but is probably not necessary.


Connected on the first try. Hope this helps.

2008 SQL Server Feature Pack URL

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyId=C6C3E9EF-BA29-4A43-8D69-A2BED18FE73C&displaylang=en