using xxamp for a lamp (linux,mysql, php) environment to do development on php? perhaps you are already running an iis server (or even the others through iis) ... in that case the default ports for webhost and mysql db will already be in use. to get apache to listen on other ports you will have to change the "listen" and "server" parameters in respective httpd.conf. For mysql .cnf the parameters are "port" at 20 and 27

you should do this at least for:

1. http: in C:\xampp\apache\conf\httpd.conf
   
2. ssl: in C:\xampp\apache\conf\extra\httpd-ssl.conf
   
3. mysql: C:\xampp\mysql\bin\my.cnf

you may also want to change port values for mysql in:

• C:\xampp\mysql\bin\mysqld-nt.exe
• C:\xampp\apache\bin\php.ini (line 795)

add the following lines to administer your server with phpmyadmin (at line 20 in C:\xampp\phpMyAdmin\config.inc.php), with whatever your new port number is in the section noted below

• $cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] = 'localhost';
• $cfg['Servers'][$i]['port'] = 'whatever your new port number is';