I have had this problem with XAMPP too and cannot get it to work in any browser. It’s not really a problem for me, but it probably is for others.
I had trouble with Package Management under XAMPP until I enabled cURL (never did do anything with sockets).
I also recall downgrading my XAMPP package at one point, but can’t remember why. I’m using 1.7.1 (PHP 5.2.6).
I’m on Vista Ultimate so you could be seeing a Windows 7 issue.
