PHP Laravel SQLServer could not find driver

Question

I'm trying to get my first Laravel project running with a freshly installed SQL Server instance, and my normal connections work. However, in Laravel, I get the error message "could not find driver" when I run the environment server with php:artisan serve.

Illuminate
 \ 
Database
 \ 
QueryException
PHP 8.2.15
11.0.8
could not find driver
SELECT
  top 1 *
FROM
  [ sessions ]
WHERE
  [ id ] = FnziuCl4Bh7mfDbUW4F3E0OQKfryNLEd21vPSyF3

php.ini shows me that SQL Server is enabled:

sqlsrv
sqlsrv support  enabled
ExtensionVer    5.11.1+17301
Directive   Local Value Master Value
sqlsrv.ClientBufferMaxKBSize    10240   10240
sqlsrv.LogSeverity  0   0
sqlsrv.LogSubsystems    0   0
sqlsrv.WarningsReturnAsErrors   On  On`

.env

DB_CONNECTION=sqlsrv
DB_HOST=192.168.xx.xx
DB_PORT=1433
DB_DATABASE=webdev_laravel
DB_USERNAME=webdev_applikation
DB_PASSWORD=password

I tried the following:

• server restart
• clear cache

I read a lot of other threads with the same error, but I don't want to use PDO, and I think it's optional, or isn't it?