New to all this CMS stuff.

I want to play about with joomla and see if it has any use for me.

I followed instructions on the joomla site and started by downloading and installing xampp.

Installed at C:/

I've opened the control panel and clicked start apache and start mysql, but when I type http://localhost/ into my browser I get a blank page.

Am I missing something obvious here?

doesn't XAMPP install into c:\program files\XAMPP ?? Try re-installing and DON'T change the install directory to just c:\ that's the root path, your better off leaving it go into c:\program files if that is where it is defaulted to go. Otherwise, if it defaults into c:\ then I would check your firewall settings. Maybe your not giving xampp access from your firewall to run?

Have you got skype installed on your machine?

because that occupys port 80 by default.

Open Skype then -> Tools -> Options -> Connection -> Uncheck "Use port 80 and 443 as alternatives ..." and Save that

restart Apache then see what happens. (assuming of course that you have some files in the website root)

I've said it before and I'll say it again - Chris you are a total GENIUS!!!

Worked like a dream - thank you so much!

yeah chris is a genius.