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.

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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.