Port 80 Busy | How to start Apache on XAMPP and WAMP

While using XAMPP or WAMP, many people get this error of Port 80 Busy and Apache is not able to start. In XAMPP the error looks like this

This had given me lot of trouble as I wasn’t able to understand what is causing this ? this problem has occurred to many many times and very randomly. The reason of this is, as you can see, port 80 busy. So most often some program and service is using port 80 and you need to close that.

What you can do is, you can start closing programs from taskbar (the one on the lower right corner in windows) and see after closing which program, the apache again starts working (you need to click on start in XAMPP/WAMP control panel).

Most likely it is Skype which must have blocked the port 80. If you are running skype, then you can easily change its ports. Go to Tools -> Advanced -> Connections (see below image)

and uncheck the Use Port 80 and 443 option and close skype. Now again try to start Apache. you should be able to do it.

If you are having any more problems with XAMPP and apache, you can ask your queries as comments.

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17 Responses to “Port 80 Busy | How to start Apache on XAMPP and WAMP”

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  1. 1Rishi on Mar 14, 2009 :

    Hi, nice tip. However I have not installed Skype in my system. Still can’t get Apache to run. FYI, I’ve not insalled IIS too. Actually it states “php5apache2_2.dll mocule can not be loaded” upon startin up. I am using XAMPP 1.7.0 on Windows XP Pro SP3.

  2. 2admin on Mar 15, 2009 :

    Hi Rishi, it seems u didn’t have clean install. u downloaded the latest version of xampp ? u installed from the installer ? I had used xampp on windows XP pro SP3 last year and it ran smoothly.

  3. 3Rishi on Mar 15, 2009 :

    Hey, thanks for your reply. I’ve used XAMPP lite 1.7.0 Selfextracting ZIP archive version. I’ve put the similar thread to their forum also. But couldn’t find answer yet. Here is its link. http://www.apachefriends.org/f/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=34049

  4. 4admin on Mar 20, 2009 :

    Hi, somehow I missed your comment. Really sorry about that. I looked at the thread and it seems the last reply has solved the problem ? so you got it working eventually ?

  5. 5mithun on Apr 22, 2009 :

    same prob to me. actually i am not using skype. i’ve been test port 80. it says, IIS uses the port 80. i’ve been uninstall IIS even then it says the the same error “busy apache started [port 80]“. i’m using windows 7 ultimate.

  6. 6Abhimanyu on Apr 22, 2009 :

    @Mithun - stop IIS as service too. I don’t know what is the path for Services in Windows 7 ultimate but in Vista i just type services and hits enter and it shows the services window. You have obviously not uninstalled IIS fully

  7. 7mithun on Apr 22, 2009 :

    I have stopped IIS as service from control panel. But got the same error……. oh god, I am really fed up with this error. Can u give me any other solution?

  8. 8Abhimanyu on Apr 22, 2009 :

    @Mithun - Restart your laptop/PC, if IIS don’t start, XAMPP or WAMP should start on port 80 server. Otherwise if possible, reinstall XAMPP again. before finding that skype was the root of problem, I had to reinstall XAMPP couple of times to solve the problem :)

  9. 9Steve on May 18, 2009 :

    thanks. exactly what the issue was on my machine. funny thing, it was the first time i ever installed skype

  10. 10Inas on Jun 4, 2009 :

    Hi, great tips, never suspect Skype will own the port though

    thank you.

  11. 11shira on Jun 25, 2009 :

    thanks a lot for these notes …it was really helpful for me..my problem was solved

  12. 12Kent on Jul 12, 2009 :

    Had same issue with Win 7 Ultimate, and Vista. Skype wasn’t a problem for me. Managed to get it working by changing the port that Apache runs on:

    http://www.famousinternetprogrammer.com/php-programming/xampp-171-on-windows-7-rc2-build-7100

  13. 13Mike S on Aug 29, 2009 :

    I uninstalled IIS on my XP SP2 box and Apache still says port 80 is busy. Any advice?

  14. 14Raoul on Oct 8, 2009 :

    Thank you very simple explanation! I did it and now It works ;)

  15. 15petrenko on Oct 22, 2009 :

    Didn’t manage to run it on port 80. Skype was not the case. Netstat shows, that unknown process with ID is running on port 80. Taskkill tells that I don’t have sufficient privileges.

    Finally just changed port in Apache configuration to 8080.

  16. 16DesignFrogUK on Nov 13, 2009 :

    Many thanks for your tip. Skype was the problem.

  17. 17Praful on Dec 27, 2009 :

    Nice tip!
    Once I installed xampp and than skype than that time i didn’t get any problem. but when I install skype first and after that xampp I got this problem.
    Thanks for good tip!
    :)

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