php.exe hangs without mysqlconnect

I am an experiences web services develpoer, but am relatively new to php.

I am using php 4.2, MySQL and Apache, developing on Windows XP.

While trying to diagnose a problem with my web page, I read somewhere that by running the php.exe command from the command line and feeding it the parameter of your php script, it can sometime give more meaningful messages. When I do this I found my problem, but am not sure how to fix it. The php files that have the function mysql_connect() will run fine, as it spools out the contents of the page and returns to the command line. The files that do not have the function mysql_connect(), will still spool the contents of the php file(with no warnings), but will then hang my command window. If I go into the windows task manager, and delete the php process, then it will return to the command prompt. I am thinking it is a database persistance issue, and has something to do with the mysql setting in my php.ini file, but I am not sure what it is.

Does anybody have any suggestions?

Thanks