i have concluded that the PHP4pl2 just does not work with the OCI extention 
when created as a CGI under win32.
 

SETUP:
OS: WINNT Server 4.0
PHP: Latest CVS
Webserver IIS4
 
Details:
i build php.exe from scratch using the latest cvs. i then loaded in php_oci8.dll
to add the oracle functionality. all was well here. however when i execute this script from the comand line (or from the web) i get this error.
 
OleMainthreadWndName php.exe - Application Error
The instruction at 0x780104c1 referenced memory at 0x000000000 
memory could not be read.
 
now the important thing to note here is that this pops up in a dialog. which means THIS IS WHY PHP apears to be hanging when its executed from the webserver. 
there is no way to close the box so it hangs forever.
 
here is the script.
<?

OCILogon("j","p", "T");


echo "test";

//the script prings "test" and then hangs.....


 

?>