Installing WP does not finish

When I run the install script it creates the files but then never returns a password. I tried requesting another password but it never completes. I then used the forum to learn how to change the password using PHPMyAdmin. I change the password and was able to login. The browser is blank, nothing shows. I noticed when changing the password there were fields called ‘user-registered’, user-activated-key and both were blank. Should those values be populated by the install script process and that is why the page is blank when I sign in? I am using windows XP running wordpress locally using virtual host. Any thoughts would be appreaciated, thanks.