Connecting Laravel with SQL Server database always shows error "could not find driver" – PHP Versions

I want to connect Laravel (version 8), with a SQL Server database (SQL Server 2008 R2).

I’ve done the installation and followed some tutorials with steps like the following, where the version I installed adapts to SQL Server 2008 R2, like this guide :

1. Installed Microsoft® ODBC Driver 17 for SQL Server (I chose version 17 because of this)

2. Installed PHP Driver version 5.6 by taking 2 files, namely php_pdo_sqlsrv_73_ts.dll and php_sqlsrv_73_ts.dll which I got from here (I chose version 5.6 based on this)

3. I put the above 2 files in C:larragonbinphpphp-7.3.9-Win32-VC15-x64ext

4. I enabled the extension in php.ini, like this: extension=pdo_sqlsrv_73_ts,
   extension=sqlsrv_73_ts. It succeed, When I checked in php.info, it says pdo_sqlsrv

5. Then I configured the database connection on Laravel’s .env like this (I’ve created a database with that name):

DB_CONNECTION=sqlsrv
DB_HOST=192.168.101.103:86
DB_PORT=1433
DB_DATABASE=testlaravel
DB_USERNAME=faisallocal
DB_PASSWORD=faisallocal

6. Then I run php artisan migrate on terminal.

But I always get an error like this:

[IlluminateDatabaseQueryException

could not find driver (SQL: select * from sys.sysobjects where id =
object_id(migrations) and xtype in (‘U’, ‘V’))

at
C:larragonwwwredeempointappapivendorlaravelframeworksrcIlluminateDatabaseConnection.php:712
708▕ // If an exception occurs when trying to run a query, we’ll format the error
709▕ // message to include the bindings with SQL, which will make this exception a
710▕ // lot more helpful to the developer instead of just the database’s errors.
711▕ catch (Exception $e) { 712▕ throw new QueryException(
713▕ $query, $this->prepareBindings($bindings), $e 714▕ );
715▕ }
716▕ }

1
C:larragonwwwredeempointappapivendorlaravelframeworksrcIlluminateDatabaseConnectorsConnector.php:70
PDOException::("could not find driver")

2
C:larragonwwwredeempointappapivendorlaravelframeworksrcIlluminateDatabaseConnectorsConnector.php:70
PDO::__construct("dblib:host=192.168.101.103:86:1433;dbname=testlaravel;charset=utf8",
"faisallocal", "faisallocal", [])]

What did I miss?
I did this test locally, and I have XAMPP as well as Laragon with different versions, but wouldn’t it be okay if I had a different port?

Please help anyone who has experience and has advice on this, I’ve been stuck at this point for weeks..

Thank you