frumbert: I made the "server product"comment based on your post of 4-11......point #2 where you said:
2. Yes, I gave proper permissions to the one and only website that WP Pro lets you have. This is not a server product that lets you run multiple sites.
and all I am saying is IIS on XP Pro is the full blown version - I've created a number of test sites on my XP.
The permissions thing - I gave full control to the ASP.NET Machine Account not just modify as per Page 12 of the install section and gave the same permissions to the Network Service account (which is probably different for you because I have a W2K3 domain controller to contend with). My website is hosted on W2K server and my workstation/test station is running XP Pro.
The docs also state that you must manually create the database - I think the tables are the ones that are created automatically during the install process.
Installing DotNetNuke was a bit of a pain, but (IMHO) an enjoyable one. This is my second CMS. The other one (which runs under linux) is based on PostNuke, which is PHP/MySQL based. I find DNN more robust -- more dynamic. As a matter of fact, the portal website was PostNuke and I installed DNN "for the difference". You just have to "dot the Is and cross the Ts" An automated installer would be good for the less advanced and I am sure it must be in the works.