Try following:

php -n -r " var_dump($_SERVER['argv']); " 1 2 3

Your test of ignoring the php.ini file via the -n flag gets it to work as expected.

FYI...

C:\PROGRA~1\php\cli>php -i | grep argv
register_argc_argv => On => On

C:\PROGRA~1\php\cli>php -n -i | grep argv
register_argc_argv => On => On
_SERVER["argv"] => Array

C:\PROGRA~1\php\cli>php -v
PHP 5.0.0b3-dev (cli) (built: Nov 26 2003 04:10:19)

Please try using this CVS snapshot:

  http://snaps.php.net/php5-latest.tar.gz
 
For Windows:
 
  http://snaps.php.net/win32/php5-win32-latest.zip

I can not reproduce this on windows using latest CVS snapshot.

No luck with the new snapshot.

Downloaded php5-win32-200312010330.zip, copied php.ini-recommended to php.ini, turned register_argc_argv = On, ran the following...

C:\PROGRA~1\php\cli>php -i | grep argv
register_argc_argv => On => On

C:\PROGRA~1\php\cli>php -r " var_dump($_SERVER['argv']); " 1 2 3
PHP Notice:  Undefined index:  argv in Command line code on line 1
NULL

And you're absolutely sure you don't have ANY old PHP related dlls in your system before you installed the snapshot?
(delete all php4ts.dll files..)

100% certain.

New PHP installs on this system are by moving the entirety of the old install aside, extracting the contents of a new snapshot .zip file then copying the exact files/structure over to the php directory.  The system finds the DLLS via the %path%, in which "C:\PROGRA~1\Php;C:\PROGRA~1\Php\dlls;" are the first two entries.

The PHP DLL's have never been copied to any other location on this computer.

Well, I can't reproduce this with either CLI or CGI, using either php.ini-dist or php.ini-recommended. So there's something wrong with your system, not PHP.

Everything worked fine until I switched from php5-win32-200310010230.zip to php5-win32-200311040330.zip

I will track down exactly which snapshot in this time period started causing the problem.  Then someone can examine the changes made in order to isolate the problem.

Please inform me where I can find old snapshots to do this.
http://snaps.php.net/win32/ only has the most recent few.

Please try using this CVS snapshot:

  http://snaps.php.net/php5-latest.tar.gz
 
For Windows:
 
  http://snaps.php.net/win32/php5-win32-latest.zip

Please try the latest snapshot.

No dice using php5-win32-200401081130

Greg just posted on the internals list that he too noticed that $_SERVER['argv'] and $_SERVER['argc'] aren't set.

He also made a very interesting observation that $argv and $argc ARE set.


EXAMPLE SCRIPT argvtest.php:
<?php
var_dump($argv);
var_dump($_SERVER['argv']);
?>


INVOCATION:
C:\PROGRA~1\php>php argvtest.php 1 2


OUTPUT:
array(3) {
  [0]=>
  string(12) "argvtest.php"
  [1]=>
  string(1) "1"
  [2]=>
  string(1) "2"
}

Notice: Undefined index:  argv in C:\PROGRA~1\php\argvtest.php on line 3
NULL

Here's a link to the discussion on the interals list back in October about these changes:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?t=106509307300006&r=1&w=2

This is a link to the current discussion regarding the situation and how either I'm misunderstanding things or things may not be working as expected:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?t=107436583100001&r=1&w=2

In the current thread, Jani pointed out that this is related to bug 25724 -- http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=25724 -- which
says that when register_long_arrays is off, the superglobals are broken.

So, until that bug is fixed, turn register_long_arrays = On in php.ini to get $_SERVER['argv'] and $_SERVER['argc'] to work.

duplicate status is deprecated.

This bug has been fixed in CVS.

Snapshots of the sources are packaged every three hours; this change
will be in the next snapshot. You can grab the snapshot at
http://snaps.php.net/.
 
Thank you for the report, and for helping us make PHP better.