I run it in XP SP3 all the time as part of my dev environment. I usually use WAMP to set up the Apache and PHP install because it usually “just works” - http://www.wampserver.com/en/
The issue got resolved.
The XP that i was using was fresh, nothing was installed in ti.
I just did a windows update which installed .net framework and other components
because of which i did not got any error while running Apache
It working fine now.
Can you also send me a reference on how to add additional browsers like Safari, and others ?