Installing Drupal

I do not know where to ask so I just try here. Hope that someone can point me in the right direction. I need to set up a forum site for my class where classmates can create forum to discuss class topics. We do not want to open forum discussion to public, therefore membership will be by invitation. Another thing that I want to do is not to publish classmates' discussion forum to public. Ning network is one such nice solution. However, Ning is not free anymore. I love Drupal and have setup Drupal before.

I am new to Drupal and having problems installing in localhost. I have all of the necessary folders and files in my root folder and am able to begin the install process by calling localhost/drupal/install.php. Everything starts off just fine until I get to the 3rd option of selecting the 'mysqli' database. I put in the correct database name, user (root), and no password. Then, after a few seconds, it returns to the same page asking for the database name, user and pass.

• I am at step 4 of the Basic Installation, but when I browse to where I would expect the installation to begin, (http://drupal.nbarley.net/index.php) I get the following error message:
  Fatal error: main() [function.require]: Failed opening required './includes/bootstrap.inc' (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php') in /homepages/0/d282400628/htdocs/drupal/index.php on line 15

This is what I've done so far:

• When I unzipped the Drupal 6.19 file, I got a long list of files - none of them in folders. Since I had my unzip parameters set to keep folders, I assumed this was correct, and I uploaded the files to the sub-domain I created for my Drupal work...essentially my root, although it's actually a folder within the root.
• I then created my database, user etc.
• Instruction 3 of the Basic Installation (http://drupal.org/node/628292) says to find the default.settings.php file in your /sites/default folder, copy it and rename it to settings.php. But I don't have any folders.
  Nevertheless, I found the file, copied and renamed it, and set the permissions for it to 666. I couldn't change the folder permissions because I didn't get any folders.

Now, I'm getting the failure to open message - I don't know if it's because of the missing folder structure or something else. I have no idea how to address this issue.

Im having problems installing drupal 7 (Alpha 1) on Windows 7.

Configuration is as follows:

Windows 7 X64 Enterprise
SQL Server 2008 Express with Advanced Services (Needed for SQL Server Reporting Services)
PHP5.3.3 (NTS)
Windows Cache Extension 1.1 for PHP 5.3
Microsoft Drivers for PHP for SQL Server 2.0
URL Rewrite 2.0

Hi there,

I am trying to run my drupal 6.16 with oracle 10g database. But I do not know How to do it. When we are installing drupal in installion it is just give two thre option mysql, mysqli or pgsql. so what I have to do if I want to connect it with oracle database.

Thanks.

Dear All,
I can't find the Rules module for Drupal 5 to download. Can you help me?
Best Regards,