As I am new to ASP, I thought that 'the Dummies' series book on the subject
should be a good starting point. However, I am little lost. It says that I
should get MS's NT Option Pack. I have XP Home edition. How should I proceed
to get this done?

I'm guessing this is because you need to install the IIS web server? The
NT Option Pack included a version of that for systems that didn't come
with a web server. But XP Home does not support IIS. You can hack your
way through it though:
http://adamv.com/dev/articles/iis-on-xp-home/
http://www.governmentsecurity.org/archive/t471.html

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Alec
Adobe Community Expert

Thanks. Bit risky, I see :-) Perhaps I should have a look if I can upgrade to XP Professional. Would that be better?

Yes. XP Pro has several features absent from Home. For example, Remote
Desktop, Advanced File Sharing, and IIS.

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Alec
Adobe Community Expert

Alec: thanks for post. Had a look and I can upgrade, for a reasonable price, to
XP Pro, rather than 'hack my way through... not expert enough to do so.. And
may end up in Micky Mouse land, due to my error....
My 'ASP Dummies' tutorial book says that I could use Notepad for my lessons,
but notice that even DM MX2004 has the facility to create ASP VBScript
pages..can I use that?

Yes. You can use DW.

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Alec
Adobe Community Expert