How do I free my port 80 on localhost Windows?

Question

I installed XAMPP 1.6.8 and for some reason it didn\'t work. Later realized port 80 is not free or not listening. How can I release it or make it free?

Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

I also had the same problem. net stop http didn't help and World wide web services option under IIS in Windows Control Panel was unchecked. So in XAMPP control panel I just checked the Svc checkbox near Apache start button (Install Apache as service) and rebooted Windows. And now each time Windows starts Apache is started automatically and occupies port 80 before any other service does. Worked for me!

Answer 2

Known Windows Services That Listen on Port 80

From Services Manager (run: services.msc), stop and disable these Windows Services which are known to bind to port 80.

Double click Service, and change ‘Startup Type’ to ‘Disabled’…

1. SQL Server Reporting Services (ReportServer)
2. Web Deployment Agent Service (MsDepSvc)
3. BranchCache (PeerDistSvc)
4. Sync Share Service (SyncShareSvc)
5. World Wide Web Publishing Service (W3SVC)
6. Internet Information Server (WAS, IISADMIN)

skype also using port 80 as default setting and you can uncheck it.

You might, or might not, have some of these Services installed and running.

In my case "SQL Server Reporting Services" was opening port 80.

Answer 3

You can use net stop http it will display which process is using. Moslty world wide web services are using

Answer 4

netstat -a -b

Should tell you what program is bound to port 80

Answer 5

I faced the same issue and fixed it by making a small change in the httpd.conf file which can be obtained by clicking the config button along with the Apache option.

The change I made was to replace listen 80 with listen 8080.

Answer 6

This is just a guess, but since port 80 is the conventional port for HTTP, you may have a webserver running on your system. Is IIS active?

If you are running IIS you may have the web farm service running. That was what was killing my xampp.