Can’t proceed beyond Database Configuration step in PrestaShop Installation Wizard?

PrestaShop is an open-source e-commerce solution that is built with PHP. It is reportedly used by more than 50,000 webshops throughout the world. Like any PHP app, it runs under both Apache & IIS.

While trying PrestaShop version 1.3.6 out, I ran into a few issues. After spending some time googling for an answer, I decided to do some experiments of my own and lo and behold, they worked! Let me tell you how it went -

A simple way to install it on a Windows PC with IIS is to extract the contents of the PrestaShop app that's packaged as a compressed file into the wwwroot folder of Inetpub. Now type this URL in your browser address bar to start the Installer Wizard - http://localhost/prestashop/install/index.php

The first hurdle came at the second step of the wizard, which is System Compatibility. The Wizard complained that my configuration was invalid as GD Library wasn't installed.
Click to enlarge all images

To correct this, I went to the Add or Remove Programs option in Control Panel  (in Windows XP) & ...


..choose the Change option for the PHP program to install the GD Library Extension that I had not selected while installing PHP originally.


After the GD Library was installed, I could proceed to step three.

The second hurdle appeared at the next step, "System configuration". The installation guide tells you to create a database for your store before you start the Wizard. During this step, the Wizard populates the blank database with data. So, prior to reaching this step  I created a blank database & named it prestashop using this query - CREATE DATABASE `prestashop` 
My database configuration was ok but the wizard would not proceed to the next step on clicking the Next button.

I got a hint from a thread on the Prestashop forums that this could be because of the database not supporting utf-8 charset.

I dropped the prestashop database I created earlier & re-created it with this query -
CREATE DATABASE `prestashop` DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8;

When I went through the database configuration step again in the Wizard, everything went fine subsequently & the installation succeeded.

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