I have changed my install of XAMPP to version 1.4.9 running php4. XOOPS 2.0.7.3 installs and runs without any flaw :)
Happy Camper,
Peccavi
For a more functionality, please work with the XAMPP version 1.4.9 with MySQL 4.0.21.
I'm not sure what "dead links" are. Do you mean links that don't "do anything" when you click on them? If you view the HTML source for the page, what does the HTML for the link look like?
Also, there were some issues with XAMPP 1.4.10.