Apache Friends Support Forum

Where did they go? In the previous version of XAMPP the dlls were there but not in the latest version.

I have removed all (~most) PECL extensions.
--> Only extensions which are part of the PHP source code are included in XAMPP.

Why? People may rely on functions that were there to still be there in the next update.

Why?

Simply a decision (reason, see above).

People may rely on functions

Relying on PECL functions is always problematically...

Well, there is no PECL/Windows package for PHP5.3.0 on "php.net".