The mbstring extension is missing Windows AMPPS

Question

I am running the AMPPS stack on Windows 10. I have been trying to get the configurations changed in php.ini while moving a Drupal site to my local environment. However, in the process I seem to have broken something. phppMyAdmin gives the following error:

The mbstring extension is missing. Please check your PHP configuration.

When I check the php.ini, the extension is enabled:

extension_dir = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Ampps\php-5.3\ext"

extension=php_bz2.dll
extension=php_curl.dll
;extension=php_fileinfo.dll
extension=php_gd2.dll
;extension=php_gettext.dll
;extension=php_gmp.dll
;extension=php_intl.dll
;extension=php_imap.dll
;extension=php_interbase.dll
;extension=php_ldap.dll
extension=php_mbstring.dll
;extension=php_exif.dll      ; Must be after mbstring as it depends on it
extension=php_mysql.dll
extension=php_mysqli.dll
;extension=php_oci8.dll      ; Use with Oracle 10gR2 Instant Client
;extension=php_oci8_11g.dll  ; Use with Oracle 11gR2 Instant Client
extension=php_openssl.dll
;extension=php_pdo_firebird.dll
extension=php_pdo_mysql.dll
;extension=php_pdo_oci.dll
;extension=php_pdo_odbc.dll
;extension=php_pdo_pgsql.dll
extension=php_pdo_sqlite.dll
;extension=php_pgsql.dll
;extension=php_pspell.dll
;extension=php_shmop.dll

; The MIBS data available in the PHP distribution must be installed. 
; See http://www.php.net/manual/en/snmp.installation.php 
;extension=php_snmp.dll

extension=php_soap.dll
;extension=php_sockets.dll
extension=php_sqlite3.dll
;extension=php_tidy.dll
extension=php_xmlrpc.dll
;extension=php_xsl.dll
extension=php_com_dotnet.dll
extension=php_mongo.dll

What could be going wrong? Do I have a wrong extension directory selected?

Answer 1

You should check the phpinfo() for web and run php -m command for CLI if you don't see the extension in these pages then you should check the php.ini directory in the phpinfo page and alter that file.

This code in a eg phpinfo.php file will show you the php info page:

<?php phpinfo(); ?>