Apache/php/mySQL - test server on PC

[#1]

I've had Apache/php/mySQL - test server on my home PC ( a Win XP Home machine ) along with using Dreamweaver CS3  for a few years now, and installed it as very well described by David Powers in his excellent books:  http://foundationphp.com/
But manually updating tends to be a bit of a pain sometimes - as I only do it occasionally.
I now want to install Apache/php/mySQL onto the office laptop with Vista Home.
Rather than go through all that manual installation etc I wonded if the packaged versions of Apache/php/mySQL might be an easier path - such as XAMPP i might be a easier if not not necessarily better solution.
Any suggestions / experience of doing this would be most welcome.
Mal

[#2]

I tend to be lazy and just use a packaged version on Windows (and my Mac both at home and the office) as it's a lot more convenient.
I used to use seperates, but moved most of my development to linux, so can't be bothered with it now on Windows.

[#3]

I also have a cheap Cobalt Raq3 server which I use to play about with at home now, it was about £20 off ebay
Prior to that I used easyphp which was extremely good but often out of date and this is the problem I tend to find with the prepacked versions.  I have heard good things about XAMPP and often a good stable release installation does beat the latest and often less stable versions which you patch yourself
But then again it all depends on whether your using it to test out PHP's latest features or simply to develop your favourite homepage or script

[#4]

Thanks Oliver - that's helpful.
I'm only going to use it to develop and maintain a couple of websites on this laptop. On my home desktop I installed apache,  php & mySQL seperately guided by david powers excellent book(s)  it was somewhat fiddly and I would have to read the books again to do it for this laptop - which uses Vista.
I'm certainly not leading edge - so I think I will give  XAMPP a go.

[#5]

I can't enough good things about Wamp Server, it is easy to set up locally and enabling modules and settings pretty straight forward as well
http://www.wampserver.com/en/

[#6]

Many thanks - I'll look at that too.
It looks like being a more user friendly interface than XAMPP

[#7]

I've used Wamp on both Vista and Windows 7 very successfully. I've found it incredibly useful for testing Joomla updates etc. before rolling out to live sites.