Pré-requis
From PHP 5.4.5, COM and DOTNET is no longer built into the php core.you have to add COM support in php.ini:
[COM_DOT_NET]
extension=php_com_dotnet.dll
Otherwise you will see this in your error log:
Fatal error: Class \'COM\' not found
The extension is included with php 5.4.5 for Windows.
Installation
Depuis PHP 5.3.15 / 5.4.5, cette extension requiert que la bibliothèque php_com_dotnet.dll soit activée dans votre php.ini pour pouvoir utiliser ces fonctions. Les précédentes versions de PHP activaient cette extension par défaut.
Vous êtes responsable de l'installation des divers objets COM dont vous auriez besoin (comme Ms Word) ; nous ne pouvons tous les inclure dans PHP.
add a note
User Contributed Notes
Installation - [2 notes]
robert dot johnson at icap dot com ¶
9 months ago
Andriy Bazanov ¶
9 months ago
As of 5.3.15 (if you are still on 5.3 branch) you have to add extension=php_com_dotnet.dll line into your php.ini to have COM, DOTNET, VARIANT and similar classes available and working.
From PHP Change log:
COM
Fixed bug #62146 com_dotnet cannot be built shared
Because of this, the official PHP builds for Windows are now built with "--enable-com-dotnet=shared" option, which means no COM/DOTNET support by default.
Some of my projects that I currently maintain use adodb library which uses VARIANT class and fails to work without it.