Nope safe mode is off according to phpinfo and is not ticked in wamp>php settings
Edit: I tried echo shell_exec("dir"); and it seems to be working outputting the directory info on the web page.
Edit 2: I finally got it working through shell_exec(), I was using the wrong slashes in the paths, should have changed \ to / doh! Still can't get it to work with the z parameter which is supposed to gzip it, but at least I'm getting somewhere.
