Run WordPress on your laptop with BitNami-no server experience required
BitNami solves all that. This totally excellent open source team has created "stacks" you can install in a single click, like any other app. The stacks contain the web server, WordPress, and so on but you don't have to care. It just works.
The one thing they don't document is where to find your WWW directory. In the example of the BitNami stack for WordPress, it's found under the apps subdirectory, like this:
XXX:\Program Files\BitNami WordPress Stack\apps\wordpress\htdocs
So in the htdocs directory you'd see all the characteristic files required to run WordPress: index.php, wp-login.php, etc. Then you could install the plugins or themes you're testing with impunity.
Advanced users can do things like run different BitNami distributions (Joomla or Drupal, anyone?) sharing the same webserver, but why bother? Disk space is cheap. Your time is much more expensive. Just install multiple stacks (about 45 megs) or run off a USB drive.
I donated to the project within a few minutes of downloading my WordPress stack.
Cheers,
Tom Campbell
PM me or ask me via Yahoo Messenger (my id:saifulbest) for more info about this crazy deal.