How to restart PHP on Windows? Unable to find the socket transport "ssl"

I am trying to load the openssl module, I uncommented it in the php.ini:

extension=php_openssl.dll

But when running my script I get an error:

Failed to connect: 0 Unable to find the socket transport "ssl" - did you forget to enable it when you configured PHP?

From the PHP documentation:

After activating an extension, save php.ini, restart the web server and check phpinfo() again. The new extension should now have its own section.

I am using a windows server machine, This is production, I really don't want to reboot the server, is there an alternative?

Solution 1:

To restart PHP on IIS, you actually need to restart IIS:

Click Start, click Run, type IISReset, and then click OK.

Solution 2:

WinR iisreset

Or, more verbose: iisreset inside a powershell opened as administrator - or even inside a Cygwin shell.

Solution 3:

For those that stumbled upon this answer and you're running Windows 10 or another version with PHP but you're NOT running any of the usual web server apps (WAMP, ServerDesktop, IIS, etc), open your task manager and you will probably see "CGI/Fast CGI" which is the PHP. Right-click and end task. The app will not go away but instead, restart with your updated configuration.