I am experiencing an issue with the XAMPP Windows 64 bit Installer under Windows 7 SP1, 64 bit.
The issue is that the XAMPP Control Panel (v3.2.2) does not accurately reflect the state of the program. After clicking "Start" in the XAMPP Control Panel, the status window displays " [Apache] Attempting to start Apache app..." At this point, nothing else happens in the Control Panel software. In previous versions, the Action button would change to "Stop", but this no longer happens.
After clicking "Start" in Control Panel, navigating to "localhost" in the browser shows the Apache Friends page, so this confirms the program started. Also, the httpd.exe process can be viewed using Windows Task Manager.
I observed a similar behavior when clicking "Start" in Control Panel for the MySql module. It simple reads "[mysql] Attempting to start MySQL app...". The "Stop" option does not appear in the button. However, it is possible to navigate to the phpMyAdmin page, so I know the MySQL program is running.
Since the Action button in Control Panel does not change to "Stop" the only way to terminate the http.exe process (and mysqld.exe process if it was started) is by using the Windows Task Manager. Quitting the XAMPP Control Panel does not stop these processes. If someone quits the Control Panel and tries to restart XAMPP thinking the program "hung", the user will get the "port already in use" error.
I did not experience these issues with the XAMPP Control Panel under Windows 7, SP1 64 bit if I chose to install and run the programs as a service. Also, I did not experience any issues with version 7.3.2 Windows 64 Bit Installer under Windows 10.
I don't know if it's relevant, but here is the Apache error log on the Windows 7, SP1 machine:
[Mon Mar 04 15:02:36.299600 2019] [ssl:warn] [pid 5512:tid 252] AH01909: www.example.com:443:0 server certificate does NOT include an ID which matches the server name
[Mon Mar 04 15:02:36.333600 2019] [ssl:warn] [pid 5512:tid 252] AH01909: www.example.com:443:0 server certificate does NOT include an ID which matches the server name
[Mon Mar 04 15:02:36.528600 2019] [mpm_winnt:notice] [pid 5512:tid 252] AH00455: Apache/2.4.38 (Win64) OpenSSL/1.1.1a PHP/7.3.2 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Mon Mar 04 15:02:36.528600 2019] [mpm_winnt:notice] [pid 5512:tid 252] AH00456: Apache Lounge VC15 Server built: Jan 18 2019 14:26:34
[Mon Mar 04 15:02:36.528600 2019] [core:notice] [pid 5512:tid 252] AH00094: Command line: 'c:\\xampp\\apache\\bin\\httpd.exe -d C:/xampp/apache'
[Mon Mar 04 15:02:36.531600 2019] [mpm_winnt:notice] [pid 5512:tid 252] AH00418: Parent: Created child process 7740
[Mon Mar 04 15:02:36.724600 2019] [ssl:warn] [pid 7740:tid 264] AH01909: www.example.com:443:0 server certificate does NOT include an ID which matches the server name
[Mon Mar 04 15:02:36.756600 2019] [ssl:warn] [pid 7740:tid 264] AH01909: www.example.com:443:0 server certificate does NOT include an ID which matches the server name
[Mon Mar 04 15:02:36.799600 2019] [mpm_winnt:notice] [pid 7740:tid 264] AH00354: Child: Starting 150 worker threads.
Since I do not want to run Apache and MySQL as services, I uninstalled 7.3.2 on the Windows 7 machine and used the 7.3.1 win32 build which works without issue.
I hope this is helpful.