I have installed apache_2.0.43-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi (downloaded binary from http://nagoya.apache.org/dist/httpd/binaries/win32 directory) and php-4.2.3-installer.exe on Windows 2000 Professional.
I experienced a problem with Apache refusing to start when I tried to load the php4apache2.dll module.
After much searching, I got php4-win32-latest.zip from http://snaps.php.net/win32.
I am not sure what PHP build this is exactly, but using the module from this package, I got things up and running (I had to add ?ScriptAlias /php/ "C:/php/"? to get it working, even that the documentation does not require this for sapi).

However, when I started to load stress the site (2 users hitting at about 100 requests per second), the Apache service started crashing (You get a popup ?The instruction at ?0x77fcbaac? referenced memory at ?0x6d74682c?. The memory could not be ?read?.)
After the first access violation, the service keeps responding for a while, until it hangs up completely.
The problem persists, even if the php page does not contain any <?php ?> directives.
It does not occur for static .html files under the same conditions.

The crash is probably thread related. If I configure Apache2 to use only one worker thread, or load the server with just one concurrent request, the problem disappears.
I suspect that the crash occurs also under IIS5.0. I have tested it on IIS, and got some failed requests. I assume IIS catches the exception quietly.

P.S.
You must use some sort of Web loading tool, simply opening two browsers does not grantee the crash reproduction. I assume that in a real loaded website, the crash will also occur.