I am having a problem similar to what is described in this thread, in that I upgraded to 1.7.3 and am seeing the same error: http://community.apachefriends.org/f/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=39903&p=158346
This is the complete error which appears at the end of the installation in a terminal window:
Warning: require(C:\xampp\install\xampp_xampp.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in C:\xampp\setup_xampp.bat on line 33
Fatal error: require(): Failed opening required 'C\xampp\install\xampp_xampp.php' (include_path='.;\pear') in C:\xampp\setup_xampp.bat on line 33
Press any key to continue...
The difference is that I already had XAMPP 1.7.1 installed on this machine (Vista Home Premium SP2) and had been using it for almost a year with no problems. I have several local DBs - Wordpress sites for theme development - within C:\xampp\htdocs\ and I'm wary of uninstalling XAMPP for fear that I will lose them. I can save the theme files of course, but losing the DBs would be pretty horrible.
What is my best course of action? Any recommendations or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.