Digikam on Windows not showing albums/images

[jeffnik at anecho.mb.ca]

Hi folks,

I have set-up the KDE 4.3.2 environment on a local Windows XP machine  
with the intention of running Digikam.  Using the same installer I  
downloaded and installed the kipi-plugins and Digikam 1.0.0-beta5.   
The software seems to run, I go through the guided set-up, but when  
the main interface comes up Digikam does not show any folders or  
images in the album.

I check the settings under configuration and have verified that the  
collection is pointed to where the images are supposed to be and the  
database path is correct as well.  I tried removing the collection and  
re-adding it, but Digikam then complains that there is a problem with  
the database back-end and it cannot create the file (to be located in  
the user's "my pictures" directory).

Everything else seems to be functional, and even running Digikam from  
the command line does not render any more clues.

Anybody else have similar problems?