You are probably right that the tick stuff is broken in ZTS mode.  But I doubt anybody is all that interested in fixing it as it is a very fringe feature in a very fringe environment.  You can always hope, but chances are you will need to dig into the code yourself and send us a patch to get any movement on this.

I do not have the skills to dig into the appropriate code, unfortunately. 

Possible workarounds:

1. Switch to Linux :) - If not wholly, do it by installing the free VMWare GSX Server and build up a server in there. Recommended because learning how to configure a Linux server is a great skill that all php-developers will gain on learning. 

2. PHP in cgi-mode is not affected, only php when running as an apache_module. I wanted to use ticks only for debugging purposes, and what I did while on windows was to configure httpd.conf so that accessing my site on port 85 would run php in cgi-mode instead of as a module. 

Here is a simplified section of my httpd.conf for this:

# Make sure no modules are loaded before VirtualHost-containers

Listen 80

<VirtualHost *:80>


 LoadFile "/Dev/Server/php5/php5apache2.dll"

 LoadModule php5_module "/Dev/Server/php5/php5apache2.dll"

 AddType application/x-httpd-php .php


 DocumentRoot /path

 ServerName localhost

<IfModule mod_php5.c>

 php_admin_value display_errors 0

 php_admin_value error_reporting 7

</IfModule>


</VirtualHost>



Listen 83


<VirtualHost *:83>

 RemoveType .php 

 Action     php5-script "/php/php-cgi.exe"

 AddHandler php5-script .php


 DocumentRoot /path

 ServerName localhost


 # php_admin_value and php_value is not possible in cgi-mode. These values has to be entered in php.ini

 # This section I found when trying to configure this myself back then. Do not know if it is needed
 # <Directory /path/to/php/>

 #  Options +ExecCGI +FollowSymLinks

 #  AllowOverride None

 #  Order allow,deny

 #  Allow from all

 # </Directory>



</VirtualHost>



Cheers!

Noticed typo: Of course I meant 83 instead of 85. Also, too bad the post got screwed up, with doubled linebreaks in the example.

I've seen this bug on my set up as well.

PHP 5.0.5 (Apache2 handler)
Apache 2.0.55
Windows XP Pro v2002 SP2 (Windows NT 5.1 build 2600)

The way I've figured it out is that if the tick function (registered by register_tick_function()) is called (N ticks have gone by), PHP/Apache crash.

I'm not sure if this applies to everyone, but I also found that the Apache child process would not fully initialize after crashing. The new child process had to be killed manually, and the next child would finish initialization.

-- 3 years later --

PHP 5.2.0 (Apache2 handler)
Apache 2.2.3

problem still here...
and "broken" example (16-3) in help without any marks still here :)
http://lv.php.net/manual/en/control-structures.declare.php

Please try using this CVS snapshot:

  http://snaps.php.net/php5.3-latest.tar.gz
 
For Windows:

  http://windows.php.net/snapshots/

No feedback was provided for this bug for over a week, so it is
being suspended automatically. If you are able to provide the
information that was originally requested, please do so and change
the status of the bug back to "Open".