Windows XP Install Problem

I have installed Apache on my Windows XP Home edition, and initially, I had
a problem running the service I wanted (I'll return to that later), but now
I cannot get Apache to do anything. When I type http://localhost, I get the
404 error. While I have repeatedly started up and shut down my machine
(with Apache running as a service), there are no entries in the error log
since the 27th of Aug, when I was having the previous entry. If I try to
restart Apache, it says it's already running, and if I restart, I still get
the same problem. Thanks for any help.