WampServer

I am used to starting my scripts like this in php

<?
echo "This is a test";
?>

For some reason Wamp does not like it this way. However when I enter

<?php
echo "This is a test";
?>

Wamp interprets it and displays the page properly

I have about 50 php pages that I would like to run and test inside wamp, I was wondering if there is a way to allow wamp to work with pages with <? // code ?> instead of <?php // code ?>

its a configuration option in the way PHP handles script, it may also be due to most PHP scripts being written for the well trusted PHP4 instead of WAMP5s PHP5.

If you go to config files -> php.ini and open this file. Then you need to look for the line that says something like this : short_open_tag = Off and change it to (suprisingly) :
short_open_tag = On

yeah, this is a short asp style tags issue, edit the php.ini file as stated above, just make sure you restart apache for the new setting to take effect.