Installation Phase:
After the building process was complete, I installed Windows XP Pro, and made sure to get all available updates. I have heard stories that an unpatched system will be hacked within 5 minutes of being put onto the internet. I think that in my case I would have more time since I didn't have any ports being forwarded to this machine. I still made sure that was the first thing I did.
Next, I installed Apache, PHP, and MySQL. The installation of these programs was very easy, consisting of downloading the zips and unzipping them. The only one that was problematic was PHP since I had to manually add the lines of code into my Apache config file. Then I copied over all of my previous webpages to the new system. Then with a couple changes to my routers port forwarding, the new system was completely in place and operational.
My reason for choosing Windows XP was because all the other computers in my house are using Windows XP. As well, I had previous experience using Windows XP for webservers. Even though I know the operating system well, I could easily have chosen Ubuntu. Another thing I like about using Windows XP is Remote Desktop, and file sharing. I know that there are alternatives in place, on other platforms, that might be better but with this I can go to school and easily remote desktop back home. Setting up the computer for remote desktop was as easy right clicking on "My Computer > Properties > Remote", and then clicking on the box to enable it.
Another piece of software that I installed was Abit's uGuru software. This software came bundled with my Abit motherboard. It allows me to control such thing as voltages, fan speeds, and processor bus speeds. This is a really great, useful, tool for overclocking the computer. I would recommend Abit motherboards to anyone who is interested in overclocking.
After the first two weeks of uptime, there wasn't a single problem and the system has been performing flawlessly.