I was planning on writing up a long blog post about the CTP of the Microsoft Driver for PHP for SQL Server driver but Brian Swan already did a fantastic job complete with code. Quick snippet from his post:
Here’s a high-level list of the work that was done for this release:
- Code refactored to share common functionality between the SQLSRV and PDO_SQLSRV drivers.
- SQLSRV extension is rebuilt with refactored code (no new features).
- PDO::__construct(): a design change from CTP1, Connection Options now need to be specified in the DSN string instead of the driver_options[] array.
- PDO::SQLSRV_ATTR_DIRECT_QUERY: new custom driver attribute to provide more flexibility to the developer.
- Ability to execute two queries within the same context or different contexts (useful for using temp tables and other features that are not always available with prepared statements).
- Error messages are now encoded per the setting of CharacterSet / PDO::SQLSRV_ATTR_ENCODING.
- Bug fixes to both the PHP_SQLSRV and PDO_SQLSRV extensions.
My thought on this is that it’s another great step in Microsoft’s working with the PHP community. A colleague actually asked “Am I right we are picking up the tempo in terms of PHP related activity?". I was able to answer with an enthusiastic “Yes”. 
Make sure to check out Brian’ Swan’s Post at CTP 2 of Microsoft Driver for PHP for SQL Server Released.
