Trying to play with Joomla. So far my screen has been continually filled up with error messages, and searching on google I discovered that the problem is probably due to the fact that I have xampp 1.7.2 and apparently it's not compatible. So the advice was, uninstall the newer xampp and replace with 1.7.1

I am trying to follow these "instructions" from the apachefriends website:

Method B: just delete it

It's also possible to remove/delete by your own:

1. stop all serves
2. remove the Windows services
3. stop the XAMPP Control
4. delete the startmenu/desktio icons
5. delete the XAMPP directory

So I stopped the servers (I guess that's what they mean)(i.e apache and mysql)
How do I remove the windows services? I went to control panel/admin/services but then I'm lost.
What does "stop the xampp control" mean?
Have deleted the desktop icon, but how do I delete from the start menu?

Many thanks

I am fairly sure that if you go to add/remove programs you can uninstall it completely. Then you might have to disable the services using msconfig or by editing the registry (not reccommended). I did it once but it was a long time ago.

Unless you use this every day I suggest you get the non-installer version and not run Apache and mysql as services. You just start and stop them when you do or don't want to use them. There are no registry entries. It just sits there in the folder of your choice at the root of c drive. A simple bat file starts them with the click of a mouse.

OK thanks - it wasn't in my list of programs in add/remove programs. I think I did have the version you're talking about - I had to start apache and mysql manually. I have now managed to delete the folder. Yesterday it wouldn't let me delete the folder but I guess now something was probably still running in the background which has been stopped with the reboot. Thanks anyway!

Yea, if you delete the folder, that's where all of it is stored. Your server still may be messed up from it though and need to be rebuilt.

I don't have windows version of apache and mysql (since I run freebsd inside vmware for developing purposes), but AFAIR running "apache --help" in command line should tell you how to install/uninstall apache as windows service. It is something like "apache -k remove" and similar for mysql. Be aware that if you delete the corresponding folder prior to service removal you may become unable to uninstall that service because the executable will miss some fiiles and just won't run at all.

XAMPP installation usually comes with uninstaller.
Stop the apache server, mysql database connection and filezilla for ftp connection.
Click the uninstaller in xampp folder.
It can automatically uninstall the xampp software.
During uninstall, it can prompts for "database back-up" with option yes or no.
Choice yes will take your database backup.
Option no will delete the database.