nukeevangelist writes:  

XAMPP: An Apache Server Stack - part of a great toolkit

check back the apachefriends.org they offer a great tool - ready to run on your machine - either on linux or Windows system.

The cornerstone of most open source application serving is the ubiquitous LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP/Python/Perl) stack. Yet it's not always as easy as you'd expect to get all the elements of the stack properly installed and working together.
Enter XAMPP, which is an effort to provide a working stack that will provide all of the stack components (except for the OS) in one simple shot.
You do not need messy ./configure commands

The difficulty in getting Apache, PHP, Perl, Python and MySQL all properly compiled and working together is not so easy...

plz check back the apachefriends.org and get the newest
version - a great tool for you to dive into PHPNuke, hacking customizing and tailoring.