Sorry that you encountered this error, @rsepierre.
I found similar reports of this where one or more moderators replied (for example here), but so far I have not been able to reproduce this issue.
I just tried again on my Windows 11 machine and could not generate an, “Unable to load dynamic library ‘php_imagick.dll’” error when starting a new site, switching Apache<->nginx, or switching PHP versions as you describe.
We’d love to help if you can share more information or steps to reproduce the issue. It might help us to have your full logs, as well as any other details you can share, for example:
- What’s your exact version of Windows?
- Is it 32-bit or 64-bit?
- Do newly created sites work for you?
- When they stop working, what exact changes did you just make?
- What causes this error to appear — starting a site, opening the site shell, or some other action?
- Anything else you’ve noticed that causes this behaviour.
There should at least be a ressource to help people set their server in a working state. At least if you are using XAMPP or any other AMP software. You know that if you uninstall everything and reinstall you are back in a working state of affairs.
In case you need it in the future, this page explains how to uninstall Local if you ever want to attempt a reinstall like you’ve done with XAMPP and similar:
There is also a guide to import previously created sites into a fresh copy of Local (see “restore from only Local site files”):