Setting default page as a “Page”

I am setting up WordPress 1.5 as a CMS primarily and as a blog as it’s secondary purpose for someone. Is there a “wordpress” way to set a “Page” rather than “Post” as the default page when the root URL is accessed?

I can’t do it using htaccess and mod_rewrite unfortunately as i’m hosting on Windows (unfortunately). Bloody windows facists ??

I don’t really want to modify index.php as i’d rather like to make this care-free to upgrade.