Joe who doesn't know what CVS is, laying on operating table, doctors in scrub, 50 cc's morphine. stat. Drupal installation and module security updates pain in the ass - must operate!
I gotta say, that should probably go first in the order of learning, but we'll see.
I'm using Microsoft Server 2008 with IIS, and I couldn't figure out how to get Clean URL's enabled - BUT the Microsoft Server 'configurator' or whatever has a one button install for Acquia style drupal AND- when you use it, clean URL's WORK... but while I have nothing against Acquia, I decided not to use it as I'm only learning Drupal still and didn't want to add another layer of complication. Unfortunately when I decided to install regular Drupal 6 myself on the IIS server, I couldn't get clean URL's to enable.
Then I found this: http://drupal.org/node/3854