PLEASE HELP ME......

Hello,
Because I want to get a forum template (*.zip) so I have run a search online using Google.com and I have found it. It was coded by PHP. But after extracting, I could not do anything because when I open the browser to view it, I just see some codes are displayed. Maybe there are some errors or maybe It cannot work before publishing to the website. I was heard about MySQL and I have downloaded MySQL 3.23.56 for Windows, can I use MySQL to edit any PHP files? Please tell me what I should do to edit PHP files. Must I install Visual C++ to compile the PHP's files?
I am studying English so my writing is not perfect. If there are any mistakes in my letter, please forgive me.
Thankyou very much.

MySQL is a database engine, there are several fourms that are built on PHP and MySQL.

You also will need a web server program such as Apache to run PHP & MySQL.

You can edit PHP with any text only editor such as notepad. (wordpad will NOT work).
PHPEdit & PHPCorder are two of the free editors that can make PHP codeing easy. Dreamweaver, PHPExper Editor, Zend Studios & Adobe GoLive are other php enabled programs.

And Jedit... (no I'm don't want to start another 'which editor is best war' but it is a good free editor after all!)

J