Actually come to think of it, have you perchance turned off error/warning reporting, as the functions are still in PHP (I Believe/think), but if the warnings are turned off they should work fine
however when the functions are removed Possibly next version of php it will fail,

as itys a local test server, would you mind trying step 2B here

https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=82

I might try it later but i have 2 preschoolers assisting me and until the ZenCart developers pull finger and ###### Bob the Builder to zencart i can't try it yet