Having trouble installing the installer

This is my first post and am a complete newbie.
I am trying to install Zen Cart on my computer and use my computer as a local server.
I am using Windows 7 and am installing the latest version of Zen Cart.
I cannot seem to get MySQL to start in the control panel. The running icon does not come on but the lines underneath says that it is running.
When I go to the Xampp page and try PHPmyadmin it says that access in denied Error 2003.
I don't know enough about programming or file maintenance to begin to fix this.
Please help.

Dave

You will not be able to run a live store on your local machine, for many reasons...

Local machine setup can only be for testing and experimentation.

Dave,

Sounds like your problems are related to Xamp, not zenCart. I'd suggest heading over to their forums and see what they say about running in Windows 7. It's probably to do with a bunch of new security lock-downs that Win7 has provided for your 'benefit'.