I suspect its an issue with permissions (yes they exist on Windows also). I 'think' its hidden from the desktop and the system tray most likely because of ownership.
The Control Panel is a simple executable, and XAMMP is registry agnostic, so it CAN'T be your prior installation.
Services and executables can run based on the context of their installation. Their presentation layers may be inhibited from certain panes based on their permissions within the current context. I wish I had a better way to say it.
Do you know how to enable the administrator account??? Doing so will allow you to actively login as the administrator. (in almost all cases the administrator account has EITHER a blank PW or the same PW as the first created user)
from the CMD prompt:
net user administrator /active:yes
BTW, you can also hover over the CMD line and press CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER to invoke the "Run as Administrator" shortcut.
In the Command Prompt window, type:
net user
Note how the Administrator account is there, yet the new user account has not been yet created.
To set the Administrator's account password:
net user *
Then enter the required password and confirm it.
To enable the Administrator's account:
net user administrator /active:yes
http://www.petri.co.il/enable-the-windo ... ccount.htmLogout from current account, log in as Administrator.
now try starting xampp-control3.exe
If it works correctly as Administrator, the problem is with the permissions on the file.
While logged in as Administrator, locate xampp-control3.exe with Explorer, right-click, Properties and give your 'normal user' full rights to the file.
xammp-control3.exe is different than the rest of XAMPP in that it was NOT part of the installation process, and therefore was created in a different user context (most likely)
Good Luck