For some reason I was under the impression that running IIS on my local machine was gonna be a giant $ license + install ordeal. Thanks to Scott, who happened to inquire why I'm working at the office on a Saturday, to which I explained I couldn't stand the file save lags on to the dev server over VPN, who then pointed me to get IIS running on my machine.
Took all about 3 min.
Add IIS Component:
> Go to Start ... Settings ... Control Panel
> Click on "Add or Remove Programs"
> Click on "Add/Remove Windows Components"
> Check "Internet Information Services (IIS)" --- Just 13.5 MB!
> Click [Next]
> Watch the "progress bar dance" --- Less then 3 min.
> Close everything
Enable directory browsing:
> Go to Start ... Programs ... Administrative Tools ... Internet Information Services
> Click on + sign to until "Default Web Site"
> Right click on "Default Web Site". Click "Property"
> Under "Home Directory" tab, check "directory browsing", and change file root to whatever you want. Default is "c:\inetpub\wwwroot"
> Enjoy http://localhost
That sure all seems pretty darn obvious after the fact!
Now I can go home.