Is it ok for some extensions to fail to load with a PATH env var broken?

[DrLightman]

Description

I was testing on my Windows 10 dev machine with some different apache/php versions combination to be launched with a shortcut, for example:

apache 2.4.41 and php 7.4.2
apache 2.4.62 and php 8.4.1

with dirs:

c:/fbampp/php7/apache24 (apache 2.4.41)
c:/fbampp/php7/php (php 7)

c:/fbampp/php8/apache24 (apache 2.4.62)
c:/fbampp/php8/php (php 8)

While doing this my legacy path env to php dir broke, I forgot to update it, and I noticed that some extensions, not all, failed to load:

from Apache error log:

Apache server shutdown initiated...
 load dynamic library 'intl' (tried: c:/fbampp/php7/php/ext\\intl (Impossibile trovare il modulo specificato.), c:/fbampp/php7/php/ext\\php_intl.dll (Impossibile trovare il modulo specificato.)) in Unknown on line 0
PHP Warning:  PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library 'pdo_pgsql' (tried: c:/fbampp/php7/php/ext\\pdo_pgsql (Impossibile trovare il modulo specificato.), c:/fbampp/php7/php/ext\\php_pdo_pgsql.dll (Impossibile trovare il modulo specificato.)) in Unknown on line 0
PHP Warning:  PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library 'sodium' (tried: c:/fbampp/php7/php/ext\\sodium (Impossibile trovare il modulo specificato.), c:/fbampp/php7/php/ext\\php_sodium.dll (Impossibile trovare il modulo specificato.)) in Unknown on line 0

c:/fbampp/php7/php/ is the actual php directory and c:/fbampp/php7/php/ext/ is full of dlls.

extension_dir = "c:/fbampp/php7/php/ext"

Adding to the env path c:/fbampp/php7/php/ fixes the issue, but I was wondering if this works as intended.
If so, it would be a lil more complicated to launch different webserver/php versions and update path accordingly with the currently selected php interpreter directory.

PHP Version

PHP 7.4.2, PHP 8.4.1

Operating System

Windows 10

[cmb69]

Yes, this is expected behavior. The DLLs which can't be loaded rely on DLLs which are usually placed in the PHP folder. So indeed adding this folder to the PATH should solve the problem.

Assuming you are using php8apache2_4.dll from the PHP folder, you may be interested in #16958 which would add the folder containing the php8apache2_4.dll to the DLL search path.

Closing as duplicate of #16718.