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[David Krings]

Michael Southwell wrote:
> After a new install of xampp on Windows, I am having trouble getting
> MySQL running properly, and therefore also phpMyAdmin. Apache is
°snip°
> somewhere).  Can anybody help?

First thing I'd do is check if the service is running (My Computer > Manage > 
Services and Applications > Services). If the service is running, echk the 
details of it and see if it really is running the executable that you think it 
should be running. I once installed XAMPP without making sure that a different 
instance was properly uninstalled. The new install went to a different 
directory and that was a problem. You should also see any MySQL service 
related problems in the application and / or system log.
If you can't see anything wrong there, get the admin tools from MySQL and use 
those. While I do like phpMyAdmin I also found it to not work properly at some 
times without any real reason. Besides that, it can't do several things or at 
least makes them to be fairly complicated compared to MySQL's own tools (which 
aren't great either, Luckasoft's MySQL client is much better as are many others).
If you cannot connect using these tools I recommend to uninstall XAMPP again, 
make sure that all the services are wiped out, delete any residue in the file 
system, reboot, and then try again. If all that still does not work and the 
service cannot start, check if there is anything else running on the port. If 
not, you could also try to install a bare MySQL to see if there is anything 
wrong with the XAMPP install, which I somewhat doubt as our friends from 
Berlin typically do an awesome job.

Beyond that, I don't know what else other than to suspect that your Windows 
install is missing some substantial pieces. Before reformatting the drive you 
want to dig deeper and find out what is going on. Do you use that system for 
anything else? Although radical, reinstalling the whole system may be faster 
in the end (this is why I always have a ghost image floating around that makes 
that a bit easier). I am sure you find the problem before looking at this 
option. Unlike MS SQL / SQL Express installing MySQL was always a piece of cake.

HTH,

David