Using D. Power's CS5 book, having problems connecting to MySQL

Question

I posted this yesterday on another, similar thread.  I'm reposting as a stand alone problem in hopes of finding an answer.  Thank you for any help.
I am using Mr. Power's book to learn PHP for Dreamweaver CS5. I'm on a Windows 7 pro system. I followed the directions to install XAMPP but couldn't install b/c port 80 is being used by "NT Kernel & System". I changed the port from 80 to 88 both places in C:\xampp\apache\conf\httpd.conf (using the Apache Friends forums) which then worked.
When trying to finish up the exercise at http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/setup_php.html#articl econtentAdobe_numberedheader_2, everything works great using http://localhost:88/php_test/ until the end. I can't get the MySQL to work.
I set everything according to the directions on http://localhost:88/phpmyadmin . I've set up a user account called 'testUser'@'localhost:88' with the password 'xyz'. I put in the information as:
Connection Name: connTest
MySQL Server: localhost:88
User Name: testUser
Password: xyz
Database: php_test
When I either click on "select" (for the database) or click "test", the "File Activity - localhost" box comes up and goes to "(Not Responding)" status within a few seconds. The box is white the entire time, the text I'm coping comes from the header bar. After a minute or two, a box comes up saying "a server timeout has occured. Possible reasons: 1. Make sure web server is up and running 2.verify ODBC DSN exists on test server". Not sure what to do from there. (If I've clicked on the "select" button by database, Dreamweaver will lock up so I have to shut down and restart b/c it keeps going back to the "File Activity" box.)
I've also tried having MySQL Server: "localhost". Then I get a MySQL error #1045 Access denied for user 'testUser' @ 'localhost' (using password:YES) - but I know the user name & password are correct. I've tried retyping both 10+ times! This is very frustrating for me, any help is much appreciated.
....I forgot to add the XAMPP is running in the background and shows Apache and MySQL running while I'm doing all of this..
Also, when I set up the user name 'testUser' for php_test, on the "host", I selected "local" then defined the name as 'localhost:88'

Answer 1

Anyone have ANY suggestions?!?
I've installed/uninstalled XAMPP probably 5 or 6 times, done Revo uninstalls, used CCleaner to clean up my computer, rebooted and rebooted, gone down to XAMPP 1.7.3 done all the above again 2-3 times....nothing is working.  I keep having the same problem when I try to link the sql to the php page.
I've also gone into the sql file and change the host to "localhost:88" which didn't change a thing.