Faulting application httpd.exe, faulting module php5ts.dll

Trying to setup a web development environment on a Vista machine, pretty much the same way I've done it a few time before, although maybe with newer versions - Apache HTTP 2.2.10, PHP5 5.2.8 and MySQL 5.1. When trying to access phpMyAdmin, it was crashing with the following error in Event Viewer:

Faulting application httpd.exe, version 2.2.10.0, time stamp 0x48ef9351, 
faulting module php5ts.dll, version 5.2.8.8, time stamp 0x493d75fc, exception code 0xc0000005, 
fault offset 0x00009fe6, process id 0x18c, application start time 0x01c95d543b01222a.

I thought initially that all these new versions are not working properly together, googling for php5ts.dll I found this used to happen to other people with older versions. While reading a post with few suggestions, I remembered that in previous setups (on XP) PHP wasn't able to connect to MySQL until PHP\libmysql.dll was found somewhere in the PATH - some people were suggesting to copy it in various locations, like %WINDIR%\system32 or Apache\bin. Personally I don't like that, copying files around has the disadvantage that if you update PHP later and it's coming with an updated version of this file, you will have to remember to copy it again, otherwise you may run into problems (yes, I've done it before, but not anymore :-). The best solution is to add C:\Program Files\PHP to the system PATH, so that when you update PHP it will pick up the new dll.

Just to confirm, I ran ProcMon and set it to filter on httpd.exe process and for path libmysql.dll. I noticed that it was finding the libmysql.dll in MySQL\bin folder, which may be newer and incompatible with the PHP mysql extension. Adding the PHP location (C:\Program Files\PHP5 in my case) in the PATH system variable, before the MySQL\bin entry and restarting Apache web server solved the problem.