Build your first application

That helped a little. Changed the following as per the article:

httpd-vhosts.conf:

<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot "c:/xampp/htdocs/ci-news/public"
ServerName localhost/
<Directory "c:/xampp/htdocs/ci-news/public">
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>

and drivers/etc/hosts

127.0.0.1 localhost/ci-news

Above change helped and the localhost returns the CodeIgniter welcome page. But when accessing localhost/pages or any other linked when following --Build you first application are returning 404 file not found. Looking in to the Apache error log, it displays the following:

[Sat Aug 01 09:19:43.734667 2020] [mpm_winnt:notice] [pid 6256:tid 264] AH00354: Child: Starting 150 worker threads.
[Sat Aug 01 09:20:01.986693 2020] [authz_core:error] [pid 6256:tid 1524] [client ::1:1734] AH01630: client denied by server configuration: C:/xampp/htdocs/ci-news/app/
[Sat Aug 01 09:20:02.036693 2020] [authz_core:error] [pid 6256:tid 1524] [client ::1:1734] AH01630: client denied by server configuration: C:/xampp/htdocs/ci-news/system/
[Sat Aug 01 09:20:02.046693 2020] [authz_core:error] [pid 6256:tid 1524] [client ::1:1734] AH01630: client denied by server configuration: C:/xampp/htdocs/ci-news/writable/
[Sat Aug 01 09:21:32.715820 2020] [ssl:warn] [pid 7892:tid 252] AH01909: www.example.com:443:0 server certificate does NOT include an ID which matches the server name
[Sat Aug 01 09:21:32.745820 2020] [core:warn] [pid 7892:tid 252] AH00098: pid file C:/xampp/apache/logs/httpd.pid overwritten -- Unclean shutdown of previous Apache run?
[Sat Aug 01 09:21:32.745820 2020] [ssl:warn] [pid 7892:tid 252] AH01909: www.example.com:443:0 server certificate does NOT include an ID which matches the server name
[Sat Aug 01 09:21:32.775820 2020] [mpm_winnt:notice] [pid 7892:tid 252] AH00455: Apache/2.4.43 (Win64) OpenSSL/1.1.1g PHP/7.4.8 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Sat Aug 01 09:21:32.775820 2020] [mpm_winnt:notice] [pid 7892:tid 252] AH00456: Apache Lounge VC15 Server built: Apr 22 2020 11:11:00
[Sat Aug 01 09:21:32.775820 2020] [core:notice] [pid 7892:tid 252] AH00094: Command line: 'c:\\xampp\\apache\\bin\\httpd.exe -d C:/xampp/apache'
[Sat Aug 01 09:21:32.775820 2020] [mpm_winnt:notice] [pid 7892:tid 252] AH00418: Parent: Created child process 7916
[Sat Aug 01 09:21:33.056821 2020] [ssl:warn] [pid 7916:tid 264] AH01909: www.example.com:443:0 server certificate does NOT include an ID which matches the server name
[Sat Aug 01 09:21:33.086821 2020] [ssl:warn] [pid 7916:tid 264] AH01909: www.example.com:443:0 server certificate does NOT include an ID which matches the server name
[Sat Aug 01 09:21:33.116821 2020] [mpm_winnt:notice] [pid 7916:tid 264] AH00354: Child: Starting 150 worker threads.

Looks like the permission issue or something else?

---

Following the article below to see if that helps in resolving:

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/upgrading.html#access