Can anyone recommend a plug and play php/mysql software that will enable me to manage users, protect pages, prompt for logins, handle lost passwords, store their info such as name/addy/email etc.
Anything like that exist?
Preferably, id like it to be as easy as including a file in my existing pages to make them a part of the system.
Drupal, Joomla, (As mentioned) Wordpress. Basically you simply want a CMS without any pages.
I have used Pear::Auth to achieve this end (building custom CMS) with some success. There is another package that has more features called LiveUser.
They both have methods for creating/deleting users (in mySql), storing sessions, and accessing session data, so they do quite a bit of the heavy lifting for you. That said, neither of these packages are "plug-and-play," but they're about as close as your going to get to your stated goal without using some kind of premade CMS.
Pear packages are not very well documented as a whole, but the Auth docs aren't that bad, and there are some useful examples out there. This is the one I worked from:
http://forums.devshed.com/php-development-5/pear-auth-example-94752.html
Since you're not gonna use WordPress, Joomla or something to fulfil your project needs, I recommend you to google for some membership system scripts & tutorials and attach 'em to your existing project. for example take a look at these:
http://evolt.org/PHP-Login-System-with-Admin-Features
http://gigaspartan.com/?p=6
http://www.devarticles.com/c/a/PHP/Creating-a-Membership-System/
and google ofcourse.
Also using the Pear packages could be a better & more reliable solution.
As a whole no one could find any other programmer's code to fully match his/her codes. So we have to adapt ourselves to the best cms/frameworks available, I think. WordPress is pretty easy to start with:
require './wp-blog-header.php';
//and your story begins!
Also this article worth a look.