XAMPP Windows 10 - Could not find your craft/ folder error

Question

I'm new to Craft CMS and would like to getting started, I searched for several hours now but I was not able to find an answer.

I downloaded and copied craft to my htdocs folder, created a database and changed the db access but when I open my page I get

Could not find your craft/ folder. Please ensure that $craftPath is set correctly in C:\xampp\htdocs\craft\public\index.php

I think I have to change the permission of that folder but I have no idea how to do this. Could you help me?

I didn't change any path, so it is correct and points to the right file but there is only one directory visible in C:\xampp\htdocs\craft\ in my browser

Edit: my Files looks like this
htdocs
-craft

--craft
---app
---config
---plugins
---storage
---templates
---.htaccess
---web.config

--public
---index.php

Answer 1

I believe the problem is that you've got craft within htdocs, so your web server is trying to run craft from the root, instead of where it should be, /public

To illustrate, this is where htdocs should be.

-craft

--craft
---app
---config
---plugins
---storage
---templates
---.htaccess
---web.config

--public <- htdocs
---index.php

I suggest, to test, that you change the httpd.conf to make apache run from the public folder rather than the pre-made htdocs folder xampp has given you. Go into the xampp config, click on httpd.conf and change the following lines:

DocumentRoot "your\path\to\htdocs\craft\public"

and

<Directory "your\path\to\htdocs\craft\public">

Restart your server, and you should be golden. On windows, you shouldn't have any permission issues with folders.

As an example, here is what my lines look like:

DocumentRoot "D:\Documents\work\bud\public"
<Directory "D:\Documents\work\bud\public">

I'd avoid just dumping the code in the pre-made htdocs folder provided and just route your httpd.conf to wherever your codebase is.