It is my pleasure to announce that Microsoft has released an update to version 1.0 of the Microsoft SQL Server Driver for PHP.  The update to the driver is the April 2009 Cumulative Update and it contains a series of targeted fixes, the majority of which were reported by the community via the MSDN Forum.  For more details on the specific fixes, please see the readme included in the download package.

There are two non-technical fixes we've made in the update worth noting.

1. The extension is now the Microsoft SQL Server Driver for PHP, version 1.0.  We'd received a number of questions about whether or not the extension supported SQL Server 2008 because the extension had been named the SQL Server 2005 Driver for PHP.  The extension supports both SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2005, including all editions from Express to Enterprise.
2. We've improved the error message returned when the ODBC driver that the extension relies on is not installed.  The error message now calls out that the cause of the error and includes the URL that developers can use to download and install the ODBC driver.

The updated binary version of the extension is available for download on the MSDN download site and replaces the v1.0 RTM release.

We have also published the updates to the source on the CodePlex site.  We've modified the source code specifically so that the extension can be compiled and used with the current builds of PHP 5.3.

Enjoy!

David Sceppa

Program Manager - Microsoft SQL Server Driver for PHP