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I have 2 websites one uses php 8 and an older one that uses php 7.4. I currently have xampp installed with php 8, I would like to install php 7 on this current xampp installation I have.

I tried these steps recommended from this link:Is there way to use two PHP versions in XAMPP?

Step 1: Download PHP

So you have PHP 7 running under xampp, you want to add an older PHP version to it (say PHP 5.6). Download the nts (Non Thread Safe) version of the PHP zip archive from php.net (see archive for older versions) and extract the files under c:\xampp\php56. The thread safe version does not include php-cgi.exe.

Step 2: Configure php.ini

Open the file c:\xampp\php56\php.ini in notepad. If the file does not exist, copy php.ini-development to php.ini and open it in notepad. Then uncomment the following line:

extension_dir = "ext" Also if the following line exists in Apache config httpd-xampp.conf

SetEnv PHPRC "\path\to\xampp\php" comment it out with with a leading # (hash character).

Step 3: Configure apache

Open xampp control panel, click the config button for apache, and click Apache (httpd-xampp.conf). A text file will open. Put the following settings at the bottom of the file:

ScriptAlias /php56 "C:/xampp/php56" Action application/x-httpd-php56-cgi /php56/php-cgi.exe <Directory "C:/xampp/php56"> AllowOverride None Options None Require all denied <Files "php-cgi.exe"> Require all granted Note: You can add more versions of PHP to your xampp installation following step 1 to 3 if you want.

Step 4 (option 2): [Run an older PHP version on a separate port]

Now to to set PHP v5.6 on port 8056, add the following code to the bottom of the config file (httpd-xampp.conf from Step 3).

Listen 8056 <VirtualHost *:8056> <FilesMatch ".php$"> SetHandler application/x-httpd-php56-cgi

HOWEVER THE SITE IS NOT LOADING ERROR LOGS SAYS: malformed header from script 'php-cgi.exe': Bad header:

BanksDIH LTD
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    Running two different versions at the same time will always be a huge pain. It will much easier to manage simultaneous versions if your sites run in docker containers. Or better, just update the old site so that it works with 8 -- something you should do anyway, as 7.4 is past end of life. [Rector](https://github.com/rectorphp/rector) will be very helpful in that regard. – Alex Howansky Jan 20 '23 at 17:27
  • I would agree, containerisation (e.g. using docker) will make this much less of a headache – ADyson Jan 20 '23 at 17:41

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