I would recommend that you download one of the pre-packaged WAMP setups, and go with that. While that may seem a bit defeatist now with regard to what you have tried already, at least all the inner workings will have been got right.
I have had nothing but good experiences with Xampp and others with phpdev.
How about giving us the version numbers for Apache, PHP and MySQL and of course WordPress.
If you are trying to any 1.2.X version of WP, stick to PHP versions < 5.0.
Regards
I have Apache 2.0.52, PHP 4.3.10, MySQL 4.1.8, and WordPress 1.2.2.
I have noticed that other users are posting about problems in step #2, so I tend to think that there is something going on here. For example, another poster says that his Apache 1.3.33 /PHP4.3.10 / MySQL 4.0.22 is failing in step #2 with illegal SQL syntax.
What’s the OS of the server?
Perhaps the first step would be to identify the exact query that causes the crash, by commenting out parts of the install script. I know that sounds like a lot of work, and it is.
The Server OS is Windows 2000. Normally I’d be pretty surprised if it was an OS thing, but PHP and MySQL are new to me. I’ve run Apache for years without problems.
Anyway, I don’t have a problem with commenting out parts of the install script; how else would I learn about PHP and MySQL. I’m a C++ and Python programmer in my day job, so I don’t have a problem with languages.