Before i attempted my installation of Silverstripe .. i was wary of the reported errors and troubles....
however, this evening i have successfully and quite easily installed Silverstripe via Xampp 1.7.1
there was no problems with mod_rewrite? ( sorry for this since i closed the posts discussing this )
nor the other main problem i had found while reading posts.

I tried several times.. too many times.. trying to install Silverstripe through
The Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 ...
even with other CMS products as well...
so i gave up .. quite frustrated with the whole mess...

this was my first attempt to install Silverstripe on Windows XP without using wpi....

since i have read enough posts of trouble .. i decided to post my success with installation of Silverstripe...

have a nice day...