worked fine until one day I cannot open the control panel

[jo-xampp]

So I think I did a Windows update, I think that was the catalyst, but one day I tried to open xampp from the control panel and also from the file within my folders and what happens is the icon appears in the task bar below but it will not open up and no message appears to indicate what the problem is.

I'm not keen on uninstalling/reinstalling as I am worried about the files I have already set up, and I know over time I have configured things here and there, I don't remember, but it seems like a major headache...

If I post localhost/dashboard in my browser, the xampp page comes up. But if I try to click on phpmyadmin or if I try to type in the folder to open the site, it tells me that
"#2002 - No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it.
— The server is not responding (or the local server's socket is not correctly configured)."

Which I assume is that I cannot open the SQL DB because I cannot open the control panel to do so...

So if someone could at least point me in the right direction how to troubleshoot this problem or how to open my xampp Sql from the command line perhaps? then I'd be pretty happy (apologies, I need to get off the computer now, so apologies if someone tries to answer this and I don't respond quickly).

xampp 7.1.10, control panel 3.2.2 MariaDB 10.1.28

[jo-xampp]

So I backed it up but the weird thing is that as I don't have access to the control panel, I tried to uninstall using the control panel/programs and features but it is not there neither is apache. So how can I uninstall it now?