Why run XAMPP as-admin
The XAMPP is recommended to be executed as-admin as it requires running a couple of system services such as Apache, MySQL etc. Also if you have not installed Apache or MySQL as system services, the XAMPP services may still require to access and operate custom system ports especially port 1024 and above which may again require admin access.
Hence you run XAMPP without admin privileges the XAMPP itself prompts and recommends you to run the XAMPP as-admin which you can see in the below screenshot.
How to set XAMPP to run ‘as-admin’
There are two ways you can achieve running XAMPP as-admin on windows localhost :
- Install individual XAMPP services (XAMPP, Apache, MySQL) as system services
- Set XAMPP executable shortcut to run-as-admin
Since I don’t want to clog up my localhost with unnecessary services which I may not require frequently or always, I prefer the second option above which is to ‘set XAMPP executable shortcut to run as-admin’ rather than installing XAMPP services as system services.
Hence in this post, we will see how to set up XAMPP executable shortcut to run as-admin.
Locate the XAMPP shortcut files
Navigate to the shortcut for launching the XAMPP. On Win10 the location for XAMPP shortcut is usually this – C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\XAMPP
Open properties for XAMPP shortcut file
Right-click the shortcut file to open file properties
On properties dialog click ‘Advanced’
On the file property dialog box click on ‘Advanced’ to launch the advanced options.
Choose the option ‘Run-As Administrator’
On the ‘Advanced’ file property dialog box for XAMPP shortcut, choose the option ‘Run as administrator’ and save your changes.
Launch XAMPP Panel and verify
Launch your XAMPP Control Panel, you should see the above control panel.
As you can see there is no warning or recommendation for launching the XAMPP as administrator this time on the panel logs. This means the XAMPP is now launched as administrator.
You can also verify the same via Windows ‘Task Manager’. As you can see in the screenshot, the XAMPP process is running with ‘Elevated’ privileges it means that it is running as-administrator.
