Help In Configuring A Local Blast Server.

Hi all.

I am attempting to configure a local BLAST server on a Windows XP machine. I found the following series of explanations helpful but incomplete:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK52637/

Relevant information:

BLAST version: 2.2.29+ User Variable Setting: BLASTDB C:\Program Files\NCBI\blast-2.2.29+\bin

System Variable Setting: BLASTDB C:\Program Files\NCBI\blast-2.2.29+\bin

Both the machine's user and system path variables include the full path above. Since i have obviously never done this previously, do I need to create a local database? Is there a current tutorial which describes the procedure in a concise and "neophyte friendly" fashion? Once properly configured, are the results identical to NCBI's blas, e.g., red alignment bars, etc?

Thanks,

~Caitlin