I have followed he instructions of Andy Harris in his HTML, XHTML & CSS for Dummies (that's me), and changed the names of the php and html files in the htdocs folder from their original. I then pasted into that folder a page with the filename Index.htm.
According to Harris, when the URL localhost is entered after this, this should bring up the Index page-but it does not. Instead, as you probably all know, http://local host resolves to localhost/xampp. When I use the URLs localhost/index.htm and localhost I receive the message: 'The requested URL was not found on this server. The link on the referring page seems to be wrong or outdated. Please inform the author of that page about the error.' Strangely, the <title> of the page appears in the Tab information. When I use the URLs localhost/xampp/index.htm and localhost/xampp/htdocs/index.htm I get the same message but without the <title> in the Tab information. Obviously I am doing something wrong.
I downloaded the zip version and it was installed on G:\xampp on a Windows VIsta Business 64 bit operating system.
Any help is appreciated and sorry about the elementary nature of the query.
Stuart Stein