ERROR 2003 (HY000): Can't connect to MySQL server on 'localhost'(10061)

I've had 4.1 installed for over a year and for all this time have been
connecting successfully from Tomcat and Java stand-alone classes.. now
just the other day I intalled XAMPP (for PHP development), which
installs Apache and MySQL, but you can only have one MySQL server
installed (or running at any rate), since they all have to connect thru
port 3306 (right?)

all of a sudden since am trying to connect with PHP can't connect with
Tocmat either.. when try to connect from console get this error:

ERROR 2003 (HY000): Can't connect to MySQL server on 'localhost' (10061)

I have never seen this error.. checked out an old post on this subj on
MySQL site, someone said make sure server is turned on.. how do you turn
it on... there are many .exe's in

C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 4.1\bin...

which one to turn server on? (although I have never had to do this..)
and btw, which one is console client? (I have a shortcut icon to console
client in my desktop, don't remember which executable is console
client....

the XAMPP installation includes MySQL, can I just delete C:\xampp\mysql
dir so there are no conflicts? and connect to same MySQL server from
both Tomcat and PHP? (MySQL installation that comes w/XAMPP is NOT
turned on.. so I figure I should be able to connect no problem to my usual

C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 4.1

from XAMPP.. (and from Tomcat..)

don't get at all what's happening here, why, after using this server for
over a year w/no problems I would have to restart server... would very
much appreciate some help.. thank you very much..