If you are running Windows XP Professional on your computer you can install Microsoft's web server, Internet Information Server 5.1 (IIS) for free from the Windows XP Pro installation CD and configure it to run on your system by following the instructions below: -
1. Place the Windows XP Professional CD-Rom into your CD-Rom Drive.
2. Open 'Add/Remove Windows Components' found in 'Add/Remove Programs' in the 'Control Panel'.
3. Place a tick in the check box for 'Internet Information Services (IIS)' leaving all the default installation settings intact.
4. Once IIS is installed on your machine you can view your home page in a web browser by typing 'http://localhost' (you can substitute 'localhost' for the name of your computer) into the address bar of your web browser. If you have not placed your web site into the default directory you should now be looking at the IIS documentation.
5. If you are not sure of the name of your computer right-click on the 'My Computer' icon on your desktop, select 'Properties' from the shortcut menu, and click on the 'Computer Name' tab.
6. Your default web directory to place your web site in is 'C:\Inetpub\wwwroot', but if you don't want to over write the IIS documentation found in this directory you can set up your own virtual directory through the 'Internet Information Services' console.
7. The 'Internet Information Services' console can be found in the 'Administration Tools' in the 'Control Panel' under 'Performance and Maintenance', if you do not have the control panel in Classic View.
8. Double-click on the 'Internet Information Services' icon.
9. Once the 'Internet Information Services' console is open you will see any IIS web services you have running on your machine including the SMTP server and FTP server, if you chose to install them with IIS.
10. To add a new virtual directory right click on 'Default Web Site' and select 'New', followed by 'Virtual Directory', from the drop down list.