Reinstalling in New Directory

I installed WordPress for the first time yesterday and have been playing around with it. I was a little disappointed in that it replaced my original home page with WordPress’ default home page. So here’s my question.

If I uninstall WordPress, then reinstall it in a specific directory…say MySite/news…would my original static home page then display properly? And if I install WordPress in MySite/news, would I still be able to create categories, with posts displaying at MySite/topics/post, MySite/world/post, etc.?

In other words, would WordPress function as it does now if I installed it in a specific directory?

Thanks.