I hate to be repetative but, I too have experienced the session problem on the Windows 2K platform.  As soon as I initiate a session_start() (or configure session to auto start by setting session.auto_start=1). I get a crash resulting the the browser error, "Cannot find server or DNS Error ..."  In each case a session file is created in the appropriate directory however nothing is written to it.

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My configuration is as follows:

- Win2K Server - Beta 3
- PHP 4.0.1-dev (retrieved from http://va.php.net/~andi/php-4.0.1dev-Win32.zip)
-


Enclosed is the vital part to my php.ini file:

session.save_handler      = files   ; handler used to store/retrieve data
; 15-06-00 JM:  Changed  session.save_path to point to the directory C:\WINNT\Temp
; 15-06-00 JM:  session.save_path         = /tmp    ; argument passed to save_handler
session.save_path         = C:\WINNT\Temp   ; argument passed to save_handler

                                    ; in the case of files, this is the
                                    ; path where data files are stored
session.use_cookies       = 1       ; whether to use cookies
session.name              = PHPSESSID  
                                    ; name of the session
                                    ; is used as cookie name
session.auto_start        = 0       ; initialize session on request startup
session.cookie_lifetime   = 0       ; lifetime in seconds of cookie
                                    ; or if 0, until browser is restarted
session.cookie_path       = /       ; the path the cookie is valid for
session.cookie_domain     =         ; the domain the cookie is valid for
session.serialize_handler = php     ; handler used to serialize data
                                    ; php is the standard serializer of PHP
session.gc_probability    = 1       ; percentual probability that the 
                                    ; 'garbage collection' process is started
                                    ; on every session initialization
session.gc_maxlifetime    = 1440    ; after this number of seconds, stored
                                    ; data will be seen as 'garbage' and
                                    ; cleaned up by the gc process
session.referer_check     =         ; check HTTP Referer to invalidate 
                                    ; externally stored URLs containing ids
session.entropy_length    = 0       ; how many bytes to read from the file
session.entropy_file      =         ; specified here to create the session id
; session.entropy_length    = 16
; session.entropy_file      = /dev/urandom
session.cache_limiter     = nocache ; set to {nocache,private,public} to
                                    ; determine HTTP caching aspects
session.cache_expire      = 180     ; document expires after n minutes


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I have attempted the activities and have experienced the same results as those enumerated in Bug reports: 5059 and 5060.

Look forward to any input,

Jason