Windows temporary host

Is it possible to publish to a local pc ideally using Windows Vista or Windows XP. I just need to do this on a interim basis.

Currently our club website is hosted on a Windows server because I use Frontpage. Our web host has confirmed that they can meet all the requirements for WordPress but we would have to switch onto a Linux package.

If I do this, how can I build and test the new website without losing our old website. I need to make sure WordPress is the right solution and also learn how to create websites using WordPress.

I would prefer not to incur additional cost for our club apart from the small additional charge for enabling MySQL.