You install Visual Studio according to the installation instructions. Once installed, you can "open" your DotNetNuke installation with VS.

But, remember that you DON'T NEED Visual Studio to install or use DotNetNuke.

I don't understand this. I don't need Visual Studio to install or use DNN. But how can I follow your tutorials if I don't have Visual Studio?

And another question: if I do install Visual Studio do I have to go for the 2005 or the 2008 version? And what about the SQL Server version?

You don't need Visual Studio to install or run DotNetNuke. I don't recall many (not any?) of the tutorials require Visual Studio, except perhaps for the few that discuss module construction.

Either VS 2005 or VS 2008 will be fine. And, the Express versions work fine, too. Use the Express version of Visual Web Developer.

As for SQL, either SQL Server 2000 or 2005 will be fine. So will the Express versions. But, I think that the general wisdom is that the Express versions are to be avoided for production sites if possible.

You are using VS in the skinning tutorials. But now I know there are other tools for editing the skin. Anyway, thanks for your support.

Ah, ok. You can use any HTML editing tool to create skins. If you are working with ascx versions of the skin, then using VS makes sense because of the Intellisense built into VS.

My IIS on vista is not working properly i tried to install some version of dnn before checking the video here not its not working i followed the step in the video but when i m trying http://localhost/ its showing empty page with no error i tried to reinstall IIS but not getting anything same empty page comes.

if any suggestion or help will highly appreciated.

Thank you
Sohail Ahmed

Try putting an index.htm file in your web directory. If thatpge is served, then IISA is working. If not, there is an IIS problem.

yes i tried but its not working seems problem in IIS any help regarding renitalling it in vista .

I got this problem one time but i couldn't fix it so I changed into installing XP

so it means it wont work or wont get correct in my current vista , any help regarding that i have vista home premium installed on system and i want to install XP also.

Michael Washington's adefwebserver.com site has some information about getting IIS to work on Vista.

If you have no websites defined and browse to localhost.com, you should see the generic IIS welcome. Next, try creating a site with a single index.htm file. Once you have that working, you can go ahead and install DotNetNuke.

It may be worth installing setups in virtual PCs - I have several virtual PCs with different configurations for testing DotNetNuke - I run both XP and vista in Virtual PCs without a problem, have a look at this tutorial:
How to setup and use Microsoft Virtual PC 2007