Can't upgrade PHP in Wamp

Question

I have a problem that is quite annoying, I cannot upgrade Wampserver from PHP 5.5.12 to PHP 5.6.16. I tried around six times now following several tutorials but none seem to work, so here is how I did:

1) Download the ZIP file of PHP 5.6.16 (I took the x86 one, as the x64 is experimental);

2) Extract it in Wamp's bin/php in a new folder called php5.6.16 ;

3) Copy php.ini , phpForApache.ini and wampserver.conf from the hold PHP and paste them in php5.6.16 ;

4) Open php.ini and phpForApache.ini and replace all occurences of php5.5.12 to php5.6.16 ;

5) Comment the line zend_extension line as there is none in this version;

6) Restart Wamp and change the version.

At this point, Wamp detects that I have installed PHP 5.6.16, but Wamp's icon stays orange and PHP doesn't work. Have I done something wrong? I tried with PHP 7.0.1 and it didn't work either. Can somebody help me please? Thank you!

My config: Wamp 2.5, Windows 7 x64.

Answer 1

The simple solution would be to install WAMPServer 3.0.0 downloadable from SourceForge

This comes with PHP 5.6.16.

If you follow this tutorial on how to install a new version of WAMPServer , you should then be able to copy all your old versions of MySQL/Apache/PHP/SITES from your old install to your new 3.0 install and have everything all in one place in the new and improved WAMPServer 3.0. BUT DO READ THIS FIRST so you dont damage anything in your old install of WAMPServer

Oh and the new WAMPServer 3.0 also provides easily installable ADDON installs for all the latest versions of PHP5.4/5.5/5.6 and PHP7 as well as new versions of Apache and MySQL and phpMyAdmin and these ADDONs will be kept up to date in the future. So its a wins win.