I am a .Net programmer and very new to PHP. Recently I was trying to host an open source PHP application on my machine(Windows). After the Struggle for 5-6 days I will list the steps which worked for me.
I uninstalled every previous installations of XAMPP and NetBeans and proceeded with fresh installations.
This might not be the solution for everyone but it worked for me and I hope it helps someone.
install XAMPP
install netbeans for PHP.
Open IIS and stop it. It is running on port 80 by default.(I am running XAMPP on port 80 i.e. default, Running on other port might need additional configuration settings)
Open XAMPP control panel and start Apache. If port 80 is free no problem should arise.
Open localhost in browser in should display XAMPP home page.
open phpinfo() link on the left pane and copy all the contents on page. Go to: http://xdebug.org/wizard.php and paste all the content in TextBox and click Analyze my phpinfo output. It will diplay you the Xdebug file suitable for your configuration.
Download the given Xdebug dll and copy it in C:\xampp\php\ext (Xampp being the default Xampp installation directory)
Goto XAMPP control panel, click on Config button in front of Apache and select php.in,
Find line similar or exacly like,
;zend_extension = "C:\xampp\php\ext\php_xdebug.dll"
(Semicolon means it is commented)
Remove the semicolon and replace the path with the path of dll you just copied like:
zend_extension = "C:\xampp\php\ext\php_xdebug-2.3.2-5.4-vc9.dll"
Similarly find lines
;xdebug.remote_enable = 0 ;xdebug.remote_handler = "dbgp"
remove semicolons in front of both lines and make remote_enable = 1
xdebug.remote_enable = 1 xdebug.remote_handler = "dbgp"
Restart Apache server.
Copy your website code under C:/XAMPP/htdocs/(your_website)/ that means your index.php should be at C:/XAMPP/htdocs/(your_website)/index.php
Open Netbeans select New project -> PHP -> PHP project from existing source and select the folder you just copied in htdocs folder. Set it to run on Local web server.
Set a breakpoint on first line of index.php and debug.
That's it.
Additional settings were suggested on various different posts but above mentioned steps worked perfectly for me.