Php – Apache – child process exited with status 255

I am running Windows 7 64-bit with an older version of (Apache 2.0.59) and PHP 5.2 – just switched from XP and wanted to keep the same versions.

Everything will initially be working fine, but then I'll be trying to load a page and Apache crashes. I'll get an error in the browser that says "The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading." Then Apache stops running. Sometimes it can be restarted, but then crashes again on the next page load. Sometimes it can't even be restarted at all.

Looking in the Apache error logs, I see a series of messages that goes something like:

[notice] Apache/2.0.59 (Win32) PHP/5.2.13 configured -- resuming normal operations
[notice] Server built: Jul 27 2006 15:55:03
[notice] Parent: Created child process 1220
[notice] Child 1220: Child process is running
[notice] Child 1220: Acquired the start mutex.
[notice] Child 1220: Starting 250 worker threads.
[notice] Parent: child process exited with status 255 -- Restarting.

I have just come from Win XP where I never had any problems – is this an issue with my Apache version on Win7? Or perhaps it's a configuration issue? Any help would be greatly appreciated, I've done days of research and found nothing helpful.

Thanks, Brian