You might want to use oasis:
http://www.jsequeira.com/oasis/about.html
its a VMWare image that lets you run linux on top of windows and its all pre-installed for you. As far as getting started developing goes, dive in ask questions and possibly hang out at irc://irc.freenode.net/#openacs to ask questions if needed. Or if you are in WAY over your head, find a way to get out of the project :)
