It works! is coming from the index.html that is located in the htdocs folder because Apache is not running therefore no PHP files are being parsed or you typed in your browser
http://localhost/index.php or there is no index.php file in the htdocs folder.
Here is the html code of the index.html
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title></title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>It works!</h1>
</body>
</html>
Did you delete or rename index.php and index.html in the htdocs folder?
Clear your browser's cache (Temporary Internet files).
What are you typing in the browser?
Can you see
http://localhost/xampp/index.phpUse the control-xampp-3-beta.exe file to use the new control panel instead of the old one.
Make sure Apache and MySQL are showing running.
Post back when you can answer the above questions.