I now have XAMPP setup and running and was looking for a good tutorial on importing my existing site so that I can test upgrades of Joomla and extensions prior to doing the upgrades live. I am not an expert with servers of any type.
Well
u can use xampp very efficiantly to do what u entend to do
u will have to copy joomla in the htdocs in the xampp say C:\xampp\htdocs
and make a database related to it through phpmyadmin or u can simply make an empty directory in the
C:\xampp\mysql\data directory with the name of the database u want to use for joomla
and then use the explorer to install joomla on ur xampp server ...
beter to install the same vesion and then try upgrade it as u intend to do on ur website.. for testing purposes ..
you can open the address
http://localhost/joomla_dir_name/installation/and go on ..
if anything is needed please say