Planning a development site on a notebook

Good morning.
I have a running WP install, without a development copy of it and a s a result, testing is made on the “release” version. Very dangerous and slow.

I was thinking about setting up a copy of that WP install on my notebook to fasten testing and let the “release” version sleep quietly.

Is there some “how to”?

Specs:
– Platform: Windows VISTA – (Need Apache\MySQL windows based)
– Copy the WP install

Once done what is the best startegy to synch release and test versions?

Thanks