strange backward slashes in wp-load.php

Hi there,

I get the following error:

Fatal error: require() [function.require]: Failed opening required ‘C:\xampp\htdocs\wordpress/wp-includes/load.php’ (include_path=’.;C:\xampp\php\PEAR’) in C:\xampp\htdocs\wordpress\wp-settings.php on line 21

This happened after I copied my friends wordpress files to under htdocs in xampp. I noticed the forward slash goes backward in this line

‘C:\xampp\htdocs\wordpress/wp-includes/load.php’

and looked in to the wp-settings.php did not really understand the function. any ideas?