I am new to PHP and just starting to teach myself by using Kevin Yank’s book “Build Your Won Database Driven Web Site Using PHP & MYSQL”. Since I just started, the first thing I am trying to do is create my development environment on a Windows machine. In Chapter 1 it is recommended that the VC6 Thread Safe version of PHP 5.3 for Windows be installed. There doesn’t seem to be a VC6 flavor of 5.3, I can only find VC9. Does a VC6 version of 5.3 exist and if so, where can I find it?
http://windows.php.net/download/
But I would get the latest php version. Actually, I myself always use WAMPserver, that way I don’t have to think about settings and stuff 
There is no longer a VC6 version of PHP anymore (least official) on Windows you want to use the VC9 version. You can use IIS with FastCGI or get VC9 versions of Apache here: http://www.apachelounge.com/download/
Get the VC9 version of Apache. I recommend using 5.3 VC9 anyway since many servers still don’t support PHP5.4.