PDO Driver cannot connect to sql - using xampp

Question

I have been looking for a solution for this for hours now and I found a lot of solutions, but unfortunately none of them worked.
The error I am getting is :

Fatal error: Uncaught PDOException: could not find driver in C:\\xampp\\htdocs\\site\\includes\\database\\sqlsrv\\database.inc:124 Stack trace: #0 C:\\xampp\\htdocs\\site\\includes\\database\\sqlsrv\\database.inc(124): PDO->__construct('sqlsrv:Server=l...', 'sa', 'PWHERE...', Array) #1 C:\\xampp\\htdocs\\site\\includes\\database\\database.inc(1689): DatabaseConnection_sqlsrv->__construct(Array) #2 C:\\xampp\\htdocs\\site\\includes\\database\\database.inc(1479): Database::openConnection('xilenacc', 'default') #3 C:\\xampp\\htdocs\\site\\includes\\database\\database.inc(2350): Database::getConnection('default') #4 C:\\xampp\\htdocs\\site\\includes\\lock.inc(167): db_query('SELECT expire, ...', Array) #5 C:\\xampp\\htdocs\\site\\includes\\lock.inc(146): lock_may_be_available('schema:runtime:...') #6 C:\\xampp\\htdocs\\site\\includes\\bootstrap.inc(433): lock_acquire('schema:runtime:...') #7 C:\\xampp\\htdocs\\site\\includes\\bootstrap.inc(455): DrupalCacheArray->set(Array) #8 [internal function]: DrupalCacheArray->__destruct() #9 {main} th rown in C:\\xampp\\htdocs\\site\\includes\\database\\sqlsrv\\database.inc on line 124`

This is line 124 at database.inc:

 PDO::__construct($dsn, $connection_options['username'], $connection_options['password'], $connection_options['pdo']);`
    <br>

• PHP Version: 7.0.25
• Mssql express 2016
• Windows Server 2012
• If I can provide further information, please let me know.

• Downloading SQLSRV30 from microsoft website and putting the extensions in php ->
• I double checked the information I have in settings.php - they are correct, I even tried changing my sql pw because I thought it might be causing this, but it didn't work.

Answer 1

Finally after hours of googling, I found a solution that actually worked even though it doesn't look so important.
The solution that worked with me is to install Microsoft Redistributable 2012. Kinda weird but worked!