What is the difference between the link you've posted and this product?:
en/
I am concerned about using third party software products that will, inevitably, require updating every time there is a new release or bug problem.
At least, with Windows IIS, you get the updates automatically and it's part of the operating system.
Is there anything, for PHP, that will update automatically so that I can develop on my PC without worrying that I'm out of date?
Have a look at this thread:
showthread.php?t=6541
I don't consider Apache to be third party. They have more market share on the web than Microsoft.
I wouldn't want any auto updates on my development server - too much of a moving target. I want it to be as close as possible to my web server. You just update xampp when it's time to update your web server environment. That keeps everything in sync.
At the bottom of the page of the link I gave you, it tells you how to run Apache on a different port.