reporting back. I went back to an even older version of xampp that was released in 2006 (php 5.1!) to try to get php/mysql in line with when ubb.threads 7.0.0 was release (2006). I was able to get through the 'create tables' option now in the installer.
I'm waiting for the files from the ubb.classic forum to copy over to my xampp environment then I'll run the importer to see how it goes and report back....
Last edited by andrewjs18; 09/26/2019 5:09 PM.
