Cracked it finally.

I am a linux guy and was just moving to windows to be able to develop
on windows.

The problem was as follows:

There are 2 firewalls on my m/c (Windows XP). The default windows one
and a mcafee one.
These by default dont allow any of the services, unless some changes
are made to their settings. Apache.exe showed up as blocked in the
firewall settings. Had to change the setting to allow full access.
Also opening some ports 80 (or what ever port u need) s too.

Cheers guys,
Roshan Pai