Hi Shu,
first thing:your HOSTS file is not the HOSTS file we search.
If you uncheck the option "hide file extensions for known file types" in your folder options you will see, that your HOSTS file will have an .ics extension.
And your original HOSTS file doesn't seem to exist any more, so we will create a new empty one for you:
- in your Windows menu search bar type in cmd (now you should see the commandline tool in your bar)
- rightclick on it and choose run as administrator
- in your commandline type in cd C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc and hit Enter (now you should be in your drivers/etc folder)
- next type in TYPE NUL > HOSTS and hit Enter. You shouldn't get any feedback from your commandline, but the file should be created
After that you can open and edit that file like described by me.
second thing:Your XAMPP control panel v3 should also be run with higher administrative priviledges, otherwise you can not edit/use your Services ticks (grey/green checkfields on the left)
third thing:Uncheck the services for Apache and MySQL unless all is running perfectly.
best wishes,
Altrea