Port 80 Already in use

If you have Skype on your PC along with your local server, I believe you must face the challenge of running your local server to test your web applications. Personally I ran into that a couple of years ago. The way I took as a solution wasn't favorable. I had to sacrifice using Skype on my PC for as long as I was working on my project.

Your local server listens on port 80 same with Skype and other application. Port 80 is meant to be their default listening port. So when you have multiple applications of such, they will run into a competition of who to use port 80. To tackle this problem, you may have to go into "httpd.conf" file in your Apache to configure the default settings so that the local server can have a dedicated port. Follow the steps below to have this done successfully.

STEP 1

1. Start your XAMPP server or whatever server it is that you are using. 
2. Start your Apache server. 
3. Click Config button left of Admin.
4. Look for httpd.conf and click on it to open. It will open in a notepad.

STEP 2

1. In your notepad. Search for ServerName
2. Make sure you choose the one with localhost:80 in front of it.
3. Change that 80 to any number of your choice. Let's say 81 for example.

STEP 3

1. Carry out another search. This time search for Listen.
2. Make sure you choose the one with 80 in front of it.
3. Change that 80 to the same number you used in the ServerName. 81 was what I used in that example. You can use something else but make sure they are the same.

NOTE:
In your httpd.conf, "#" means comment. This part of code will not be executed by the server.
Stop Apache and restart it to effect the change. Now you are good to go! Congrats you've made it!