newb to .asp and iss and need help

I have iis 5.1 on my windows xp pro machine, and I have gone through the set up tutorial. I cannot get my pages to open up via the browser address bar, I get a page not available message. I have tried to use the path 'http://localhost/aliasName'  (where 'aliasName' is, place the alias you called the virtual directory). I can't figure out where else to go. Any help?

I don't need to have a domain and an ip address to view it from iis do I? My understanding is that an .asp page needs to be processed through a web server in order to show the out come of the script. I don't know how else to view the pages I write.

You might want to use your control panel to check the services and ensure that iis is started.

Also, if you use the iis admin panel to browse to your local site, there should be a right click option on your asp files to view it in a browser. 

If you can't execute the asp file that way, it's either a problem with iis or the code.
If you can execute it then the problem is with your code or with the address used in the browser - in addition to trying http://localhost/myfile.asp and http://127.0.0.1/myfile.asp, you might also try http://my-machine-name/myfile.asp.

Just right clicking on the file in the regular internet explorer wil put file://... in the browser instead of http://... - the file://... won't work.

The iis service has depedencies on other services so sometimes it takes a reboot or two to sort out the sequence the services need to be started in.