absolute URLs XP vs Server OS

I develop sites on XP machines and would like to use urls in the format of
/<dir>/page.htm in the pages throughout the site. Since XP does not allow
you to create multiple sites, only multiple virtual directories, so the
proper format needed is /<virtualdirectory_name>/<div>/page.htm. Obviously
this does not work when publishing the site to production.

The only way I know to accomplish this is to make the site I am working on
the default site in XP. Does anyone know of a better solution that will
allow me to use virtual directories?

Thanks,
PJ