[eluser]jt`[/eluser]
So, I just realized something.
Every time I've installed a new stack (XAMPP, WAMP, etc) the php.ini file has always been in d:/php. So I thought, maybe I'm just working with a really old php setup. Turns out that's the case.
The problem I've been having: I'd get error messages when trying to open phpmyadmin from any stack. So I finally got that fixed, which addresses the problem I had to start with: I can't connect to remote databases from my localhost.
So from here, it should go fairly smooth =) If I never reply to this, we'll just assume I got it figured out.