+ Windows NT, 2000, 2003, XP (RECOMMENDED), VISTA In addition it appears that the readme for XAMPP 1.7.4 says Googling that particular error leads to an Apache Friends forum thread where the users all have in common 64 bit systems. The error in XAMPP control panel says XAMPP Component Status Check failure, Current directory c:\xampp, run this program only from your XAMPP root directory, despite the fact that I am running XAMPP from C:\xampp I have a 64 bit Windows box.And indeed another 64 bit user has posted in the comments on that tute, the same error
Long story short I was following the tutorial for Setting up a PHP development environment for Dreamweaver, following the instructions for XAMPP for windows