upgrade mariadb under xampp

1. Shutdown MySQL in your XAMPP server from Xampp control panel or mysql under Services if it was added.
2. Download the ZIP version of MariaDB (https://downloads.mariadb.org/) - you may download the winx64.zip if you are also switching to x64 variant of mariadb
3. Rename the xampp/mysql folder to mysql_old
4. Unzip or Extract the contents of the MariaDB ZIP file into your XAMPP folder
5. Rename the MariaDB folder, called something like mariadb-10.3.14-winx64, to mysql
6. Rename xampp/mysql/data to data_temp
7. Copy the xampp/mysql_old/data folder to xampp/mysql/
8. Copy the xampp/mysql_old/backup folder to xampp/mysql/
9. Copy the xampp/mysql_old/scripts folder to xampp/mysql/
10. Copy mysql_uninstallservice.bat and mysql_installservice.bat from xampp/mysql_old/ into xampp/mysql/
11. Copy xampp/mysql_old/bin/my.ini into xampp/mysql/bin
12. Edit xampp/mysql/bin/my.ini using a text editor like Notepad

Find skip-federated and add a # in front (to the left) of it to comment out the line if it exists

Find innodb_additional_mem_pool_size=2 and add a # in front (to the left) of it to comment out the line if it exists

Add this skip-grant-tables statement anywhere in xampp/mysql/bin/my.ini file Save and exit the editor

13. Start-up XAMPP
14. Run xampp/mysql/bin/mysqlcheck --repair --all-databases
15. Run xampp/mysql/bin/mysql_upgrade.exe
16. Shutdown and restart MySQL (MariaDB)