* On the installer download page it says the following:
--
(CGI only, packaged as Windows installer to install and 
configure PHP, and automatically configure IIS, PWS and 
Xitami, with manually configuration for other servers. No 
external extensions included, get them from the zip and PECL 
downloads above, and install manually)
--

* And since you're using the installer, read the installer 
specific documentation in the install.txt as it only refers 
to CGI as the following:
--
The Windows PHP installer is available from the downloads 
page at http://www.php.net/downloads.php. This installs the 
CGI version of PHP and for IIS, PWS, and Xitami, it 
configures the web server as well. ...
--

It seems clear that this only installs the CGI and you're 
wanting to install the module. To do that, download the Zip 
package. The documentation in install.txt may seem a little 
confusing here because install.txt is generated from the 
official documentation, and includes all [Windows specific] 
docs. IMHO this is fine as it shows other (preferred?) 
methods for installation too.

Actually, I downloaded both the msi and the zip.  While the files for the .dll were there, Apache for Windows refers to .so files, so that there are no relevant .so files still in the zip version for Windows.

Now, in general, one can replace a LoadModule in Apache 2 with the .dll equivalent, but also in general if the .so access module and the dynamic shared objects modules are in .so form, they will not find Windows modules that are added as .dll

There are workarounds, and I've done them in the past, but Apache 2.2 doesn't seem to like this approach for its Windows versions.  The typical result, and the one I'm getting, is that Apache can't find php5apache2.dll even when it is in the correct path!

It may be that Windows has two problems:

01.)  It does not obey case
02.)  It's translation of <blank space> is erroneous

In (01), any pointer within the dll with bad case will also fail.  In (02) it will see non 802.3 names as the familiar tilded name and simply will not find the dll module.

(02) seems to be the most likely cause, since the file is definitely where it belongs, it works flawlessly with php5 in Apache 2.0.48, but not with Apache 2.2

The assumption that Windows Server will be using Internet Informaton Server is more of an assumption than a reality, since most Windows Servers do, in fact, use Apache.  It would seem the developers of the Windows side of php simply skipped configuratin for Windows with Apache in these latest releases, PHP5 and Apache2.2

I knew it to be a little more than a documentatin problem, but I am still working on what I see as an actual software bug.

As stated, I have tried both, the msi and the zip, neither works.

php5apache2_2.dll only exists as of PHP 5.2.0 so consider 
downloading a version from snaps.php.net if you must use 
Apache 2.2.

See also this open bug report:
http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=37343

Thank you for taking the time writing about this bug. But 
since it's a duplicate, I'm marking it as bogus.

Also, the windows install.txt mentions .dll and not .so for 
this. Since install.txt for each distro (unix/win) includes 
the entire FAQ, perhaps you stumbled upon that. Or, the PECL 
docs.

thanks.  I'll notate the differences and see if I can find switch to PHP 5.2.0 that has php5apache2_2.dll