1) Setup a LAMP server (Apache, PHP, MySQL). The easiest way to do this is to grab a pre-bundled version of all of these using WAMP. Run through the install and the standard setup should be fine.
2) Create a MySQL DB. Once you have WAMP up and running, you can create a new database by visiting http://localhost/phpmyadmin. Your best option is to probably create a new user.
This will aid your setup when installing Drupal. Remember the username and password.
I usually like the above options when creating a new user in MySQL.
3) Download the lastest version of Drupal. Unzip it and put it in your root directory (if you used the WAMP defaults, then this should be C:\wamp\www) under a directory called "drupal". Just to make this clear, once you have the files there, you should see index.php inside the "drupal" directory. There will also be several other files.
4) If everything was done correctly, you should now be able to visit http://localhost/drupal/install.php to install Drupal. You will need the username and password for the MySQL db that you setup above.
5) That should be all you need. You should have a basic Drupal Install with all of the defaults.
6) From there, I would recommend a few modules. Admin Menu, SMTP, CCK, and Views. Make sure to put these modules under the following "drupal\sites\all\modules\contrib". Likely all these directories don't exist, but be sure to create them. You can install the modules at http://localhost/drupal/admin/build/modules.
7) Play around from there. I will post more later. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them here and I will try to answer them. You can also search Google for your questions.
