setting up wordpress on my windows x86 machine

first and foremost i would like to know if wordpress can be setup on a development machine rather than on an online host.

i installed the requirements on my system : apache, my-sql and perl but it still doesnt work when i run http;//localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php in my browser. what it shows is just some php code in the browser.

do i have the right php installation or what is the problem