You can get a handle on VB.NET that has the lowest learning curve of any type of current windows programming. If the person coding has experience he/she will be able to easily use the existing php source and mimic the behaviour of the code.

I've been told that C# with .net could be the way to go?, comments anyone?

might want to have a look at Adobe Air. It is cross platform compatible and will run on most any device. I haven't used it yet but heard a few good things.

rich Internet applications | Adobe AIR

There are a number of solutions, I came across one a while back that was better than this example, but it is interesting, ExeOutput for PHP - Visual PHP to EXE Compiler Software for Windows

Have a look, as well there are some self contained, scripting libraries as well.

Yes and no. If the windows coder understands php, or the code is well documented, then the code can help. If the coder has to spend more time figuring out the php syntax, or any libraries the code is using, then the code might not help as much as giving them a specification.

Sometimes showing the Windows coders what the app does is enough of a spec, and the coder can go off and duplicate. But if there are special error handling or exception handling that isn't obvious, and only shows up when the user does the wrong thing, or the program breaks, that should be detailed somewhere so the Window program behaves the same.

Do you mean what are the specifications of the PCs where the software would run? Like, "Software must run on Windows XP/Vista/Me/2000/7 on PCs with under 512 MB".?

Can you share the web app via PM? If so I can take a further look and give you better advice. I code on the desktop and the web...

Hi,

PHP expert here. ping me

thanks for all the responses, I think I now have a good idea how to move forward with this project

if you need a GUI, you can use pecl.php[dot]net/package/cairo

@Ken If you dont mind I would love to hear how this project comes out, I looked at the possibility of using an embedded, PHP, MySQL, Apache environment, in the past (probably about 4 years ago) and after looking at the over head, (CPU, Memory, usage, ect) I decided against it, would love to hear how it works out.

Tim

You can use the Roadsend set of tools to create a windows exe from your code. It also allows you to embed a microserver with your app so that the user can interact with your app locally using their web browser.

You will find it here: roadsend.com