Manual installation means you do everything yourself. 

  1. Make sure you have all the prerequisites
  2. Download the latest stable DNN build from the DNN Github Releases
    always get the DNN_Platform_..._install.zip
  3. Extract the contents of that zip to the location where you want to host it on your local PC.
  4. Decide what name you'll use to access it
    1. like some-site.fuf.me or something (*.fuf.me always points to localhost)
    2. Make sure that name will work, either because it's a global localhost domain or because you have configured your hosts-file to point to your PC.
  5. On your local IIS, configure a new site to load that folder.
  6. Open that URL and walk through the DNN installer

tada!

Troubleshooting

Usually every step up until the first time you open the site in the browser won't show any issues yet. So let's just check common problems:

  1. If you enter the URL and nothing or an error appear, then something is wrong with the name you're using - it's probably not pointing to your IIS.
    1. Verify by using ping in your command prompt, like ping mysite.fuf.me.
    2. If this does return 127.0.0.1 you're ok. Otherwise continue troubleshooting.
    3. If it doesn't have any IP you must set it in your hosts file or use another domain which works. 
    4. If it does have an IP but points elsewhere, you have to change names or make sure this name resolves to 127.0.0.1
  2. If you have a wizard but can't seem to contact the database, check these things
    1. Make sure your local DB is the default instance (required for automatic setup)
    2. ...or manually type in all the specs to get it to work
    3. Make sure SQL Client-Libraries work. Remember that a web-server is a DB-client. So you must ensure that the SQL server listens to the correct protocols. Since you're working on localhost, you should be able to open both TCP/IP and Named Pipes just to make sure it works. 
    4. Make sure the permissions work. As you're on a localhost, make sure you give the SQL most of the permissions just to get it to work directly.