I am trying to run a web server, Apache, (via XAMPP), on my laptop to test out the software Joomla. During the XAMPP installation, though, it says that Apache cannot install because port 80 is already in use. I think that a previous installation on this machine of XAMPP is making port 80 busy, but I have uninstalled everything XAMPP related and deleted it all from the local C: drive. What should i do? How can I just stop whatever process is clogging up port 80?

Reboot the machine. Don't open any windows except a command prompt. Run: netstat -ano That will tell you the PID of the connection. Use taskkill /pid # to kill it. How do you know when a politician is lying? His mouth is moving.

THank you so much for you reply, but on the command line (and remember I have WindowsXP) is says that taskkill is not a recognized command. What should I do in this case?

Actually, I found tskill on google and tried it. It does exist, but I cannot kill the process (which happens to be 884 it that means anything) because it says "Access Denied"...is there a way to force it?

You can get round the problem by having Apache listen on port 8080. You then need to forward port 80 on your router to port 8080. This only works if you are behind a router. If you have the modem directly connected to the computer it wont. Stuart

I am not using a router...just my laptop. I don't know how to kill the process, so I guess I'm at a hold up for now

Go to Task Manager and see which program is running under that PID number. You can try killing the process from there, but if it's running as a service, you'll need to stop that service. Control Panel -> Administrative tools -> Services