title: 'Error!: could not find driver' after installing php_[pdo_]mssql.dll on WampServer
body: <p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12568415/pdoexception-could-not-find-driver-after-configuring">Similar questions</a> <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2852748/pdoexception-could-not-find-driver">seem to be</a> <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17796190/how-to-load-php-pdo-sqlsrv-54-dll">all over the internet</a>, but so far nothing has helped.  </p>
  
  <p>I'm currently running <a href="http://www.wampserver.com/en/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">WampServer</a> with Apache 2.4.4 and PHP 5.4.12 on Windows Server 2008 R2.  <a href="http://www.php.net/manual/en/pdo.installation.php" rel="nofollow noreferrer">According to the PHP documentation</a> the drivers necessary to connect to an MSSQL server ship with the distribution; they do not.  Neither <code>php_mssql.dll</code> (which the documentation claims is no longer necessary for PHP5.4, but which is still referenced in <code>php.ini</code>. Who knows) nor <code>php_pdo_mssql.dll</code> are present in the distribution.</p>
  
  <p>Several sources pointed to <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20098" rel="nofollow noreferrer">these drivers from Microsoft</a>, however I had no success either renaming the respective drivers to <code>php_mssql.dll</code>/<code>php_pdo_mssql.dll</code> or keeping the names the same (<code>php_sqlsrv_54_nts.dll</code>, <code>php_pdo_sqlsrv_54_ts.dll</code>, etc.) and modifying <code>php.ini</code> to point to the proper driver.  Though I didn't get an error upon starting apache as I do when the driver is simply missing, I received <code>Error!: could not find driver</code> when attempting to point to a test php page at localhost.</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://www.undermyhat.org/blog/2009/07/php-windows-install-unable-to-load-dynamic-library-php_mssql-dll-php_pspell-dll-etc/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">This article</a> seemed the most promising, but unfortunately <code>ntwdblib.dll</code> is <em>not</em> included in the zip distributions of PHP, contrary to what the article claims.  This seems like it should be a laughably simple problem: missing drivers, which are supposedly readily available.  And yet here I am...  What am I doing wrong?</p>