If you’d like to experiment with WordPress Themes and Plugins, checkout http://www.tamba2.org.uk/wordpress/xampp/ for a clear tutorial on how to install WordPress on your local XP PC.
It describe how you can use Xampp (see earlier post https://it2tp.wordpress.com/2008/05/30/xampp-apache-mysql-php-and-perl-easy/ ) to setup WordPress locally. I tested this on XP and Vista, and it’s really quick and easy to install and configure.
If you would like your WordPress site to be accessible by other PC’s in your LAN, replace localhost in WordPress, Settings, General Settings, WordPress address and Blog address by your PC’s hostname.
It2tp 