Problem with installation – crunched install.php site

Well known problems with manual installation strikes back.

I’ve tried to install manually wp 2.8.6 (also 2.8.6 PL) on several hosts (free, and paid as well – every host supports wp – there are working wp installations – of course not mine, but other users’ – for example bplaced.net).

Every time after starting install.php (or setup-config.php) appears “crunched” site with a lot of “%>#$!” and error messages “WP already installed”, “wp-config.php found….” Install process doesn’t work.

Every required information is properly set in wp-config.php… MySQL database is created and empty.

Even more – this bug appears when wp-config.php is deleted from wordpress directory….
Even more – this bug appears when I run install.php or setup-config.php on my local PC with WinXP, without installed MySQL, PHP, WWW server on it….. So I think maybe this is not a problem with database connection, but on earlier stage – error in PHP script (parsing?). But how to correct this?

Test file phpinfo.php with string “<?php phpinfo();?>” uploaded on remote host returns empty screen (IE8, Firefox 3.5.5). The same is when I run it from local computer.

I’ve searched dozens of posts in this forum, and tried various solutions, and anything helped….

Should I install PHP on local computer, although I want to install WP on remote host?!