After a number of minor issues I was able to complete a successful install of DNN on Windows XP using SQL Server Express 2005 ... but upon clicking the link to go to the portal I received the "Forbidden" error.  After reading through the posts on this site, I modified the portalaliases table (it has a redirect to the "install' file), and it appeared at first this would resolve the issue.  The "forbidden" error has now gone away, but the browser never loads the site ... it says "Waiting for http://localhost ... " at the bottom of the browser an "connecting" at the top and never resolves. 

Any ideas on troubleshooting would be appreciated.

Mitch ... Thanks for your response.  I checked the portailalias entry and it does not have the / at the end.  It reads "localhost/julyweb/default.aspx".  I also tried "localhost/julyweb" but it gives me an error message that it cannot display the webpage.