Help with running WordPress via BitNami

Alright, before I move on to the actual problem, here is a little pre-history:

After many, many unsuccessful tries to run WordPress flawlessly on my local Windows 7 machine, I pretty much gave up.
I tried using WAMP and IIS. In both cases there were TONS of problems and error messages. Billions of them, I mean it. Nothing worked from the get go and every time I tried to fix something, there was another problem.
Only my first try with IIS was successful but then I did something wrong and I was unable to install new WordPress sites on my local IIS from then on.
Honestly, I have never worked with anything so bloody confusing and buggy as all those PHP, MySQL & WordPress things.
Each one of them requires ages to master and the forums are full of people asking questions about all sorts of problems that these things have caused.
So at one point I just went totally ballistic and uninstalled everything WordPress-related from my machine and gave myself a couple of days to vent all the frustration off.
Anyway…

Now I am ready to give it one more try.
This time using BitNami.
This thing installs everything for you – WordPress, MySQL, an Apache server, etc. Just like WAMP.

I was able to start using WordPress but then I noticed that the thumbnail images of the theme that I am using do not show up on the front page and in the posts.
So I read that I have to change some permissions or something.
But then I realized that there is no control center in BitNami to do all of this from. Or at least I don’t see one in my installed Programs.
How can I tweak my Apache server using BitNami? How can i mess with those permissions? Where from?
I believe that my Apache server is pretty much ON all of the time and I will be damned if I know where the OFF button is, let alone the settings/controls menu.
I’m back to frustration and landing hammer fists on my PC’s case.