OK, well I checked the error.log file again and its empty.
Also did the apache_start.bat. That was an interesting exercise, as a dialog box appeared saying Windows wanted to know if this program should be "blocked" or "unblocked". I responded "unblocked", but wondering why this appeared at all considering I had instructed Windows Firewall to allow Appache through. Anyway the resultant dialog box says:
Diese Eingabeforderung nicht waehrend des Running beenden
Bitte erst bei einem gewollten Shutdown schliessen
Please close this command only for Shutdown
Apache 2 is starting ...
The it just seems to hang.
Appreciate you help here. I'm going nuts. You're probably right that the number of times I've installed, unintalled etc have an effect, but all the advice I was reading were saying make sure Xampp stops the service, try reinstalling etc.
The initial problem here was that I downloaded and installed Xampp 1.7.2 (the latest version) as instructed on Drupal (
http://drupal.org/node/161975). This all went very successful and I managed to successfully complete all the directions and then clicked for the next page (
http://drupal.org/node/307956) only to read that Drupal does not install correctly on 1.7.2 and that I needed to have installed 1.7.1. Obviously, this information should have appeared on the preceding page! I'm going to post to Drupal.
So, somewhat annoyed and not knowing how to go back to a previous version of Xampp, I proceeded to install 1.7.1 thinking that by naming the folder differently (c:\xampp_1.7.1) than the original (c:\xampp), I could keep both versions live and install Drupal 6 under the c:\xampp_1.7.1 folder.
So, yes this action got me into trouble, which I realized when I checked the path that was actually being used to start Apache (Task Manager > Services) and realized two Apache's had been installed. I deleted the one I didn't need from the Services list. Did a restart. Didn't help.
After that, I uninstalled Xampp 1.7.2. Restarted. Still couldn't get Apache running. Useing the installer.exe, I re-installed Xampp 1.7.1 - and still couldn't get Apache running.
That's when I started googling forums for help and tips.