I installed XAMPP 1.7.4 (with PHP 5.3.5), the problem is PHP does not display any error messages. E.g. if I connect to MYSQL with mysql_connect() without parame
mysql_connect()
May be the display error is off
add in .htaccess file of your application.
php_value display_errors on
OR
use this at the top of your php script
ini_set('display_errors',"1");