i had the problem on Windows with newest xampp 8.2.12 that the extension_dir path in my php.ini was not working. after struggling a while, trying different thing i found out, that it works if i put the extension_dir above the include_path, and voila – now i can see the correct extension_dir in phpinfo()
i found out, that also other commands did not work and that the include_path of PEAR did cause some problem and no modules were loaded, so i moved the include_path to the end of the [PHP] section, and now phpmyadmin and mysqli and everything works like it should.
hope this helps someone out there! 🙂