Hi, a little help please, I'm running window7 and trying to re-establish xampp.
I had a working version but in trying to run PDO found that I needed to up above 7.
I uninstalled and now this...
I'm told I have antivirus running running although I only know of windows defender.
I've tried to change uac settings, probably erroneously. Anyway I tried to just
try anyway. when offered "C:\xampp" I click next and am told "not empty, select
different folder". What must I do? Thanks guys.

There's so much missing here that any guess will be a guess. I know that we don't want to use Windows 7 for such because reasons (too many to list) and you can run Windows 10 or Linux for free. Windows 10 will run fine without the license or activation.
Over at https://www.apachefriends.org I see the current version is 8.something so I'd start with the usual uninstall of the old XAMPP then try the current version. Consider this part of the lesson of running any server apps.

Finally I can't guess what you did as well as what the error message is here. The more you write the more I have to work with.
There's also a change in Windows that almost forbids you installing to the root or top folder. It's about security so see what a clean install wants to install to next time. It might not be C:\xampp.

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