phpMyAdmin - can’t connect - invalid setings - ever since I added a root password - locked out

I run XAMPP, a few days back i had set up a password for the root password through phpmyadmin I am not able to access phpMyAdmin ever since that moment

I followed help on this link but everything seems fine there (in config.inc.php). I even tried unistalling xampp fully, restarting windows and then reinstalling xampp, but still pointing to localhost/phpmyadmin I get the following error

MySQL said: 
Cannot connect: invalid settings. 
phpMyAdmin tried to connect to the MySQL server, and the server rejected the
connection. You should check the host, username and password in your
configuration and make sure that they correspond to the information given
by the administrator of the MySQL server.

I Also tried to reset root password through mysqld.bat as given on mysql's website help but to no avail

Please Help!

From serverfault OrangeRind

• You can reset the Mysql password trought the cli by running it with the --skip-grant-tables option, next you'll be able to log in with the root user without a password and issue

  UPDATE user SET Password=PASSWORD('newpwd') WHERE User='root';
  flush privileges;
  exit;
  

  Next, restart MySQL normally.

  Hope this helps.

  From Maxwell

• Edit the config.inc.php file in the phpmyadmin directory and change line 73: $cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = ''; to $cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = 'yourPassHere';

  Save, and access phpmyadmin again. This will avoid you from having to change the password as stated by Maxwell.

  From Egdelwonk