Hi there XAMPP community, I'm new around here, though using XAMPP for years now. My only wonder (not a real headache) is about the server (either PHP/MYSQL) working exponentially slow (since the 1.8.x version was released) than the older versions (1.7.x, using 1.7.7 at the moment).
I came over this problem when I was changing some php DB handler from mysql to MySQL Improved for a random client and I tried to make use of the mysqli_error_list function (which works only on PHP 5.4 and greater), while XAMPP 1.7.7 was released with PHP 5.2.4 if I'm correct.
That being told, I downloaded the 1.8.0 (lite and standard versions), installed them and created a very very simple class connecting to my DB. All I can say is that the processing of that simple page takes about a second (while in the 1.7.x versions, is a matter of milliseconds, loads instantly). Note that I've made no custom changes to MySQL configuration nor PHP.ini. I am using Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 without having concerns over RAM or Processor since it's an I5 Ivy Bridge with 8 Gigs of RAM.
I guess it's about the MySQL because doing a large PHP iteration the page is processed the same as 1.7.x versions.
Best regards, and keep up the good work.
Duluman Eduard Cosmin.