laravel app won't appear on localhost - laravel

Question

I am having issues with my xampp and locahost and laravel projects. When I create a new laravel project: composer create-project --prefer-dist laravel/laravel fmvcei in my C:/xampp/htdocs folder, when I type in localhost/fmvcei/public, nothing appears. I pulled from another stack overflow question on this where it suggested removing the NameVirtualHost *:80. When I try to configure my host files to be able to type fmvcei.test in the browser, still nothing. I have restarted xampp each time. Here are my httpd/vhost and host files:
# Virtual Hosts
#
# Required modules: mod_log_config
# If you want to maintain multiple domains/hostnames on your
# machine you can setup VirtualHost containers for them. Most configurations
# use only name-based virtual hosts so the server doesn't need to worry about
# IP addresses. This is indicated by the asterisks in the directives below.
#
# Please see the documentation at
# <URL:http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/vhosts/>
# for further details before you try to setup virtual hosts.
#
# You may use the command line option '-S' to verify your virtual host
# configuration.
#
# Use name-based virtual hosting.
#
#
# VirtualHost example:
# Almost any Apache directive may go into a VirtualHost container.
# The first VirtualHost section is used for all requests that do not
# match a ##ServerName or ##ServerAlias in any <VirtualHost> block.
#
##<VirtualHost *:80>
##ServerAdmin webmaster#dummy-host.example.com
##DocumentRoot "C:/xampp/htdocs/dummy-host.example.com"
##ServerName dummy-host.example.com
##ServerAlias www.dummy-host.example.com
##ErrorLog "logs/dummy-host.example.com-error.log"
##CustomLog "logs/dummy-host.example.com-access.log" common
##</VirtualHost>
##<VirtualHost *:80>
##ServerAdmin webmaster#dummy-host2.example.com
##DocumentRoot "C:/xampp/htdocs/dummy-host2.example.com"
##ServerName dummy-host2.example.com
##ErrorLog "logs/dummy-host2.example.com-error.log"
##CustomLog "logs/dummy-host2.example.com-access.log" common
##</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot "C:/xampp/htdocs/"
ServerAdmin admin#localhost
ServerName localhost
<Directory "C:/xampp/htdocs/">
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride all
Require local
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot "C:/xampp/htdocs/fmvcei/public"
ServerAdmin admin#localhost
ServerName fmvcei.test
ServerAlias www.fmvcei.test
<Directory "C:/xampp/htdocs/fmvcei/public">
AllowOverride All
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
Require local
# if you want access from other pc's on your local network
#Require ip 192.168.1
# Only if you want the world to see your site
#Require all granted
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
hosts file:
# Copyright (c) 1993-2009 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host
# localhost name resolution is handled within DNS itself.
# 127.0.0.1 localhost
# ::1 localhost
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 tbhtoat.app
127.0.0.1 fmvcei.test

Answer 1

First things, make sure both Apache and MySQL are running.
Move to the root project directory, fmvcei in your case, then run this command php artisan serve. you can browse by 127.0.0.1:8000
NB. you need to install composer if you don't yet.