Open Run dialog ( Windows + R), type in this command and press Enter (or the OK button): taskkill /IM httpd.exe If for some reasons, the XAMPP icon doesn’t appear on the notification area, you can stop the Apache process using Windows taskkill command. The process is stopped when it doesn’t have the light green background anymore. On the XAMPP Control Panel dialog, click Stop at the Actions area on Apache to stop the process.

Then, double click the icon: XAMPP icon on notifications area To do that, you can locate the XAMPP icon under Windows notification area.

Stop XAMPP Apache processįirst, we need to stop the Apache process on XAMPP. *We assume that you already have XAMPP running properly. Here are the steps to change the primary PHP version in XAMPP on Windows. Tutorial StartsChanging XAMP PHP version: Step by step To run XAMPP on multiple PHP versions, we will have another in-depth tutorial on how to do that. *Note: This is for completely replacing the PHP version in XAMPP. This tutorial will guide you on how to replace the PHP version of XAMPP on Windows.

You don’t want to download another XAMPP package again (with different PHP version) and have to reconfigure everything.

You want to test for newer PHP features on a newer PHP version.

The current PHP platform is outdated, or containing security vulnerabilities.

The PHP platform you are developing requires a newer OR older PHP version to run properly.

Some example cases requiring XAMPP PHP version replacement including: If you are using XAMPP for PHP development on Windows, there are high chances that you will need to change, upgrade, or even downgrade your XAMPP PHP version to satisfy the compatibility of the PHP package your are developing.

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