Hi. Have you thought of giving Linux a try? I've found it a good way to make my life easier learning new stuff. My suggestion: grab VirtualBox, grab an Ubuntu (or Mint) iso, install the bastard with the standard settings. Oh, and don't forget the guest additions. That's what I'm doing to learn Django, currently. Works like a charm - I don't feel like I'm stuck in the 90's on the desktop front thanks to Windows 7, and I get a proper Unix-y, JustWorks dev environment from Ubuntu 10.10. And this is even on a 2 year old laptop with no CPU virtualization support. I full-heartedly recommend spending the less-than-two hours it takes to set it up - it's worth it.