xampp沒玩過
win上開發是裝appserv
也在fedora上測試過幾次

my.ini
[mysql]
default-character-set = utf8

[mysqld]
default-character-set = utf8
character-set-server = utf8
collation-server = utf8_general_ci
init_connect = 'SET collation_connection = utf8_general_ci'
init_connect = 'SET NAMES utf8'

網頁編碼
charset=utf-8

phpmyadmin登入選繁體中文utf-8

utf8_general_ci和utf8_unicode_ci的差別google就有

曾經為了釐清這些問題買了這本書
以上做法都是在剛建好mysql沒資料時就設定好