I think the service restarts would be fine, not sure though

If you want to make sure you're editing the right php.ini script
Make a phpinfo.php file
and put this in it: <? phpinfo(); ?>

Should show you the php.ini file its running on.

Also i think i had this problem before with Kloxo, instead of editing the php.ini file, i disabled it from kloxo

Not sure if thats what you have though