Apache Friends Support Forum

I don't see the problem on the side of xampp.

Port 80 is the standard port for http-www Server. Skype (and some other programs) aren't webserver in classical meaning, so they shouldn't use this port (same as port 443 which is the standard port for http protocol over TLS/SSL).
These programs only use these ports, because it's very common that they are not blocked by any security system.

Of cause on some systems there is already a webserver installed (e.g. IIS on some Windows Versions). Users which want to install xampp on there system rarely use this other webserver (XAMPP as testsystem for IIS doesn't make sense, more than one webserver on one system isn't recommend). So this other webserver can be uninstalled. Thats the clean way.

I found another strange problem that was preventing me from starting Apache. Files in the apache/conf and apache/conf/extras had somehow been modified. The paths looked like C:C:/.... instead of just C:/....
Dont know how that happened. I do have multiple servers on this machine including Tomcat.
I noticed the error by using the bat file to start apache, doing that will give you a DOS window showing the startup and what file and line number is causing the error.

mikeyjay wrote:...The paths looked like C:C:/.... instead of just C:/....

In earlier XAMPP versions it was possible to run the setup_xampp.bat file a number of times, either intensionally or by accident, which would add the paths again to any existing paths, but in more recent versions this was eliminated by doing more stringent checks before attempting to add the paths once again - the response to running the bat file more than once is the message "Sorry, but ... nothing to do!' and these checks and responses are to be found in the C:\xampp\install\install.php file referenced and ran from the setup_xampp.bat file.