New Installation on Local Machine

I have recently been attempting to install the latest version of WordPress on my home computer so that I can learn how to work with it before actually installing it on a hosted site (largely so I can manipulate the pages how I want without having to constantly connect to an FTP server and upload changed files).

I am running Apache with PHP and MySQL installed, everything appears to be installed correctly and I have copied the wordpress files over into the proper directory.

However, when I go to run through the configuration of the wp-config.php file, it locks up as it’s trying to move on to step 2 and gives me nothing but a white screen. I have searched and searched for possible answers to this problem via google and this site but none of them make any sense to me.

I have even tried to manually edit the sample config file and it does not work. I know my information is correct but it gives me a blank screen.

Does WordPress simply not work the way I am trying to test it out? Does it require an actual web server with a domain name attached?

Please help, I’m at my wit’s end and on the verge of simply giving up on this endeavor entirely.

OS: Windows XP SP2
Apache v2.2
PHP v5
MySQL v5.1.46
Wordpress v2.9.2