If you are looking for a good way to install a server for development and debugging I heartily recommend the Zend Studio. It offers a wonderful interface for editing testing and debugging and comes with one of the latest versions of PHP (not sure which as of this writing).

It unfortunately is not free, but it is worth the investment, especially if you do enough php development. $99 for standard version will give you all you need for writing, editing, evaluating and debugging.

Personally, just because I am weary of anything that comes pre-packaged ALL together, and because I like the options of upgrading and customizing each individual part myself (and I am not an expert by any means)I choose to install apache, mySQL and PHP seperately on my machine from their original sources. It takes a little editing, but I had a nice guide from Friends of Ed (PHP for Dreamweaver book)that helped to get it all working together nicely. I am sure there are other places that would help describe how to set it up.

Obviously, as has been already said elsewhere, LAMP is a prefered way to go, but if you are Linux shy it can work adequately on just about any windows 2000 or XP pro OS.

Thats my 2 cents. If I find a link that would provide a way to set up WAMP using the individual parts I will let you know.

The Conian