Gettext on WAMP / Windows

I have some difficulties working out how to make the native gettext extension work in my WAMP environment on Windows 7. I have tried everything I can think of but still nothing. I have now stripped everything down to a simple example:

<?php
header( 'Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8' );

$locale = "Dutch_Netherlands.1252";

if (!function_exists("gettext"))
  {
  echo "gettext is not installed";
  }
  else
  {
  echo "gettext is supported";
  }

var_dump(putenv("LC_ALL=$locale"));
  echo "Exist?: ".setlocale(LC_ALL,  $locale);
  textdomain('messages');
  bindtextdomain('messages', '/[MY LOCAL PATH]/locale');
  echo gettext("Service");
?>

PHP:

Everything seems to work as it should until the gettext() function where everything just hangs and I eventually get a "connection interrupted" reply from the browser.

I have placed the messages.po/mo file couple in this structure (which is correct I guess?):

locale/Dutch_Netherlands.1252/LC_MESSAGES/

The gettext extension has been activated in WAMP. I currently use the following setup:

WAMP 2.1
Apache 2.2.17
PHP 5.3.4

 

Just figured it out myself. I simply installed a newer WAMP version. 32 bit this time, I think the previous installation was 64 bit but I'm not sure. Wish I did this immediately instead of spending 5 hours yesterday trying to solve the issue Now it works just fine..., although the local Windows locales are a bit annoying.