I'm running Windows XP SP3 and I do have the latest .NET libraries installed, as well as Visual Studio 2008. I'm also running (and would like to continue to run) Apache HTTP Server as well, if that matters.
Perhaps someone can provide a list of software that I need and then I can look up configuration or ask here if I can't find what I need.
Thanks.
You don't need anything else. Visual Studio will host your application and let you step through it.
If you have Visual Studio 2008 just create new website project. VS has got a build-in web server for debug purposes.
Since you have Visual Studio 2008, why not just use the built in Casini browser? I use that for nearly all of my development & testing - and have not come across any major issues with it.
If you want to run the projects outside of the Visual Studio environment, you'll need IIS as well. You can install it from the Windows Components section of Add/Remove Programs. Other than that, you should be set.
You already have everything you need to run ASP.NET applications; Visual Studio 2008 has an inbuilt web server 'Casinni' that starts up and hosts your asp.net site when you compile and run from the development environment (Press F5)
If you have the professional version of XP you can install IIS 5 via Control Panel -> Add/Remove Windows Components and use that to host your website instead.
To configure vs.net to use IIS instead, In Solution Explorer, right-click the name of the Web site for which you want to specify a Web server, and then click Property Pages.
In the Property Pages dialog box, click the Start Options tab. Under Server, click use custom server. In the base URL box, type the URL that VS.NET should start when running the current Web site.