I am about to embark on seeing whether I can develop webpages with their shopping cart (Zen Cart) on my local PC.
Pages do not exist in the normal sense....it is mostly adjusting the text diplayed and adding your graphics
My local environment;

- Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit.
- IIS 7.5
- PHP 5.2.14 (Downloaded not installed yet)
- MySql 5.1.53 (Downloaded not installed yet)
- Zen Cart 1.3.9h (Downloaded not installed yet)
I would get one of the packages
XAMPP
WAMPP
Easy php
Makes a local development environment easier

After completing development, are there considerations when uploading to the ISP's server given thus far its' always been a Linux server?
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=99