I would like to run an IRC server for users of my LAN, and my best option would be to do so on a Windows XP box. Is there a decent Windows/Cygwin IRC server that you have used and would recommend? If so, any configuration pointers would also be greatly appreciated.
I've played around with the Windows build of Unreal IRCd. It's annoying to configure if you've never configured a Unixy IRC server before, but there's always the website to help you out, and on the plus side you get portable knowledge (all the concepts as well as most config files can be ported straight to a Unix machine.)
InspIRCd is awsome, there's stable Win32 port/build nowadays. SSL support and everything.
http://www.inspircd.org/
I'd agree with Mihai that the Unreal IRCd has a lot of advantages.
If you don't like it for any reason, there's also ignitionServer.
There is an IRCd for Windows called RockIRCd-win32 that isn't very well known, but it's great. I've been using it for a few months and have had no problems. I don't know if there's an official webpage for it, but the author had posted a direct link to a .zip file containing the binary and source code on a forum.
http://rubbermallet.org/rockircd-win32-vb6.zip
It was written from scratch, and not based on any existing server. I have it running on an old Windows 2000 computer with a Pentium 1, and the uptime is over a month and a half now so it seems reliable enough.
Beware ircd is another choice http://ircd.bircd.org/