Bad Installation: IIS Server

[Ken.]

Glad you got it working!
As for learning something... me thinks that you just may have done so in spite of yourself. 

On the editor question, you should use an editor that is capable of working with PHP and you'll find that there are many free ones available, the one I use is called Notepad++ ... it supports a long list of languages including the two main ones for my usage, php and html.
A good php editor won't add a bunch of extra code to your work and it should also have a search feature to help you find the line of code you need to work on.
Notepad ++

On the 'pre-changed' SMF files... we don't do that, only SMF can offer SMF files for download so we will not be offering those.