Xampp continues to redirect to toolbar

I am trying to set up a local environment with a virtual host using XAMPP on my new work laptop - running Windows 10.

I have exactly the same setup as my Surface Pro where it works, but every time I try to access local I am redirected to the dashboard.

In the hosts file, I added:

127.0.0.1 local.testing.co.uk

In httpd-vhosts.conf I added:

<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot "C:/www/testing-co-uk/web"
ServerName local.testing.co.uk
 <Directory />
    AllowOverride none
    Require all granted
 </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

      

        
        
        
      

    

In httpd.conf, I changed DocumentRoot and Directory as follows:

DocumentRoot "C:/www" <Directory "C:/www">

My test-co-uk folder is under C: / www folder

• If I go to local.testing.co.uk I am redirected to local.testing.co.uk/dashboard.

• If I go to localhost, I also redirect to local.testing.co.uk/dashboard.

• If I go to localhost / index.php I get to the first page of the site I want, but when I click on the link, I will respond to local.testing.co.uk/linkname (and 404 error).

Can anyone kindly suggest what might go wrong? I'm going to go crazy for 10 hours. I checked various other posts on Stack Overflow and tried various solutions, and of course restarting Xampp every time.

Any help would be really appreciated.

Regards James