...By the way, can we attach image to posts in this forum?
You can provide an image using the
Img button when composing a message - you would need to use an image hosting service and link to the image and remember that an image over 800 x 600 is too big.
What installation setup script are you referring to?
After you double click on xampp-win32-1.7.2.exe to install XAMPP you should see a console window that asks you some questions and is the installation script I refer to which in fact is the xampp_setup.bat file that automagically loads after double clicking the above exe file.
You would only need to run setup_xampp.bat file again after installation if you need to change things and in your case you could install XAMPP to any drive or partition as explained in the installation instructions on the XAMPP for Windows Home Page or in the readme file.
I have not seen your Mercury problem before so I can only suggest a few things.
Try disabling UAC and logging in to Vista as an administrator or a
Super Administrator before installing XAMPP and before trying to manually tick the Svc boxes in the XCP - Svc boxes refer to the installation of the respective XAMPP component as an NT Service that will start the respective XAMPP component when Windows boots and is not usually required to run XAMPP in it's recommended role as a development tool.
Did you tick the Svc box next to Mercury in the Xampp Control Panel (XCP)?
Did you try and start Mercury by clicking on the Start button in XCP after ticking the Svc box?
What happens next?