Much earlier versions of XAMPP included a utility for starting and stopping XAMPP, xampp_cli.exe. At some stage this got lost, apparently because of some problem of rights to the code. There's quite a lot of correspondence from that time that gave hope that the problem would be addressed, and this useful utility once more being made available.
At each new release, I look for it in hope, but so far hopes have been dashed. Is there any plan to bring back our xampp_cli?
Chris