This is the problem with SO many people, if something gets hard they just think o well Im not meant to do that anyway. The difference between those people and the people running servers now are that the people running servers just stuck it out. There is no lottery to determine who gets to set up a server.
Also if you in the course of 24 hours you get to the point of wanting to give up then you will be running into the same issue after your server is running. I guess people think that once the server is up and running then all the headaches are over but that's so far from the truth. If you don't have the patience to set up a server(regardless if it takes you 1 day or 7) then you will run into serious issues trying to troubleshoot a complex NPC script or god forbid any source changes you may have made.
The key to success(in all of life really) is persistence. You may lose interest briefly but that doesnt mean to scrap everything.
Also if you want help with problems, you need to give information. You give all these cool stats about your server comp(which are entirely irrelevant to this post) but then simply say that you ran into errors near the end of the guide. How exactly is somebody supposed to give you feedback based on that?
Ultimately there is no difference if you are running an XP server or Win7 or Vista server besides the fact you need to run things as administrator, and likewise with what version of EQ is installed on the server box. I've run SoD zones on a server that only had titanium installed.
Also there is no 'locked off' version, so when you asked about custom servers its a weird question. When you change shit in your DB, that makes your server custom and is in no way related to any problems setting up your server. If you are asking about editing the source code, I would say focus on getting a server running, do other basic shit first(since you seem pretty new to this) and then later after you get more confident, start getting into compiling your own source.
Follow the guide you linked, ignore all the minilogin shit and you will be fine. If not, then ask specific questions.
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