Conflict with prior installation of Apache

PHP
1

I am following the instructions in Kevin Yank’s book, PHP & MYSQL: Novice to Ninja, and I installed XAMPP v1.8.3 on Windows 7 and it appeared to install correctly. When I try to start the XAMPP Control Panel I get the following error messages:

7:23:27 AM [Apache] Apache Service detected with wrong path
7:23:27 AM [Apache] Change XAMPP Apache and Control Panel settings or
7:23:27 AM [Apache] Uninstall/disable the other service manually first
7:23:27 AM [Apache] Found Path: “C:\Apache24\bin\httpd.exe” -k runservice
7:23:27 AM [Apache] Expected Path: “c:\xampp\apache\bin\httpd.exe” -k runservice

I am a novice user and am not sure what the above messages are trying to tell me. I did have a prior version of Apache running successfully. I thought I had uninstalled that version prior to installing XAMPP but the error messages seem to indicate that is not the case. I don’t find Apache in the list of installed programs but I still see its old directory (Apache24) and all the associated files on my system.

What steps do I need to take to resolve the above issue(s).

Thanks in advance for your help.

Dave

2

You should be able to uninstall the old Apache using the Windows Uninstall a Program feature.

If you cannot do that, then go to your Start Menu, in the search box type “services” and select the Services feature. Look for Apache in there. If you find Apache listed in the services, double-click it to open its properties window and set the “Startup type” to disabled. That will prevent your old installation of Apache from loading on system boot and conflicting with the new one.

Other than that, go into your Start Menu -> All Programs -> XAMPP folder then right-click on XAMPP Control Panel, select properties, and in the properties window go the Compatibility tab and at near the bottom check the box that says “Run this program as an administrator”. Make sure you installed XAMPP in your C: drive, not in Program Files.

3
4

Disabling the prior service didn’t work. I did fix the problem by deleting the service … running the cmd prompt as administrator and using the -k uninstall command removed the service and now stuff works.

Thanks for your help.
Dave