WordPress Apache Server (localhost)

Hello everybody!

I am fairly new to the whole php/mysql thing and I am trying to install wordpress on my local machine to test it and create a nice design before I gonna upload it to a server and I can’t get it to run.

So far I have installed the apache server XAMPP (version 1.4.4 which everyone says works fine with wordpress). I have startet the server and created a wordpress database plus user and already editet the wp-config file.

When I try to open the install.php file I get lot’s of errors (includen <php…> tags. I think that something is not running because as I suppose the php-tags shouldn’t show up, right!?

Plus I am not sure where I have to place the wordpress files. So far I have placed the wordpress files in a folder called “blog” which is in my “xampp” folder (C:\appache\xampp\blog). Is this the right place or can I put the “blog” folder just into drive c (C:\blog)?

Can anyone help me out?
Thanks a lot,
Yours Phillipe