So I tried the DNN Installer figuring I'd try to set up a differnent site on the same machine using different install procedures.  When I did this and went back to my orginal website attempt that error went away.  So maybe the installer configured something in IIS or who knows what.  I noticed in IIS the installer set up an application instead of a virtual directory so I changed my original attempt to an applicatoin and browsed it.  I still got an error which told me I needed to change the debug to true to see so I updated my web.config.  I tried again and got a nice DNN screen although it showed an error: "The type initializer for 'DotNetNuke.Data.DataProvider' threw an exception." and had a button for "return to the site."  I did so and got this error:

Exception Details: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

It's referring to:

Line 82:             Select Case GetUpgradeStatus()

Almost there....

I uninstalled SQL Server 2005 Developer, VS 2005 Pro, and then upgraded Vista Home Premium to Vista Ultimate (because I suspected the windows authentication was an issue).  I re-installed and now I'm very close.  I ran DNN through VS 2005 and it showed the upgrade/install screen.  I had to use the Auto selection since the default selection results in some kind of database loop and doesn't work correctly.  The scripts ran and the database tables were created and then I got a:

"Invalid URI: The hostname could not be parsed." error screen from DNN.

I am assuming this is referring to a setting in IIS7 that must be wrong because (even though I was able to browse via IIS before), for some reason now if I try to browse the website through IIS I get:

"HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable."

I also noticed in IIS that I no longer have a default website.

Anyone have any IIS advice?