A problem has been detected...php

I just went through the setup for zencart on an IX Webhosting windows based server and after the "do you want to enable phpBB" section it gives me the below error. I have already called ix and they said everything is enabled. The cache folder is already set for 777. and it didnt time out because I was sitting here watching it...any ideas? Thanks a ton.

"Sorry, a problem has been detected.
This installer needs to be able to start a PHP session in order to complete installation.

Possible causes of this page being displayed include:

Perhaps a timeout has occurred
If you left the installation unattended more than 20 minutes, then the information you entered on previous screens is no longer available. In this case, you will need to begin the installation process again.

Please do not leave the installation process unattended for long lengths of time. Installation should only take 5 minutes under normal circumstances.

The server has no place to write its session files.
If you have not already made the "cache" folder writable, please do so now so the installer can continue. Details on making the files writable can be found in the Installation Instructions or in the online FAQs.

PHP sessions might not be functional on your server
In order to use Zen Cart™, you will need to be able to use the "session" capabilities of PHP. It could be that your server configuration is not currently allowing PHP sessions to start and interact properly. Also, if you have session cookies disabled in your browser, you will not be able to use PHP session support. Please turn off cookie-blocking tools in your browser and firewall as a precaution.

You may need to talk to your webserver administrator for assistance in ensuring that PHP sessions can be configured and used on your site."

write sessions to database

As you said, it's not a timeout issue.

The installer needs to be able to write session data somewhere. By default it tries to use the /cache folder, but can only do that if it's writable. The secondary fallback is to use whatever the server's PHP configuration is set to for session storage ... as long as that's writable. If both fail, you'll get that error message.

Qdixon's comment is correct if you had already completed the install and were having problems with the live store. But during install, the session content cannot be put in the database because the database isn't known yet.