“pretty” permalinks

assuming you are using IIS on your local machine, you need to read this:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks#Permalinks_without_mod_rewrite

When I get ready to post the WordPress version of my web site, I’d like to have the “Pretty” permalinks (month/day/year/sample-post). Will I have a problem?

that depends. READ this:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks

Your hosting environment is what you need to be concerned with – not WordPress.

I want to keep a copy on my computer (for tweaking, etc.) but want both the web site and my “localhost” version to work.

can you define what you mean by “work”, after youve read the links above 🙂

If you have IIS 7 and the URL rewrite module installed, to get wordpress to use pretty permalinks your web.config should look like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
  <system.webServer>
    <rewrite>
      <rules>
        <rule name="wordpress" patternSyntax="Wildcard">
          <match url="*" />
          <conditions>
            <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true" />
            <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsDirectory" negate="true" />
          </conditions>
          <action type="Rewrite" url="index.php" />
        </rule>
      </rules>
    </rewrite>
  </system.webServer>
</configuration>

Linux is certainly easier to setup with the .htaccess.

For IIS if you have this as the web.config, have a permalink chosen other than default in the Admin Control Panel. It should work. You will need to make sure that your php is configured properly as well.

If you are running PHP as a fast cgi module you need in your php.ini:
cgi.force_redirect=0
fastcgi.impersonate=1

Hope this helps.