Although I don’t disagree with @oddz points, I think everyone needs to simply focus on the issue at hand. Xampp isn’t working and the person would like it to. I realize that doesn’t meet up with some of our development choices but unless @nmeri17 wishes to explore a VM solution, we need to respect his choice (and from a quick read, it sounds like he doesn’t want to pursue a VM solution).
@nmeri17, personally, I’d copy your works to a new location, uninstall the current version of Xampp (via the control panel), destroy the folder that Xampp used to live in (if it still remains), then download and install a version of Xampp that utilizes PHP 5.6
Once that is proven to be working, copy your works back into a spot where Xampp will understand them.