[PHP] Problem using sessions

I'm trying to write an application and I need to have some variables available on several pages, so I've thought to put them into the session.
Well, I couldn't do that so I've tried a simple script like this

Code:

---

<?php
$started = session_start();

if($started)
  print "session started";
else
  print "session not started";
?>

---

the result is always "session not started".
I'm using a XAMPP platform, may that be caused because of register_globals set to off or because of any other reason?

Well there are many reasons.
Did you check-out

http://de.php.net/manual/en/function.session-start.php

and read the comments?