Oracle Database Express Edition (XE)

Hello there,

After installing for the first time the Database 11g Express Edition on my PC, I cannot connect to the local host, in order to access the home page of the database. The error encountered is from the browser, saying that it cannot find the page. Please help.

This question is posted after *7 hours* of searching the web (mainly on this forum) on which I haven't found my solution, so please read the following before you answer:

OS: Windows 7 Ultra 32bit
Operating port - the default 8080, which is not used by any other service at this moment (verified with netstat)
Status of Listener: running (verified with lstnerl status)
Browser: Chrome with no proxy (whatsoever)
Services running (and restarted to make sure): OracleServiceXe, OracleXETNSListener and I have manually started OracleXeClrAgent and MTSRecovery
Database: running, according to the "Start Database" batch

Observations:
- when issuing netstat in the above presented conditions, I have nothing on port 8080, where the HTTP Server should be
- according to the executable made by ORACLE, my database is running but when trying to connect with "sqlplus /nolog" as "system" it gives me error number 01033: initialization or shutdown in progress, which is weird. Even weirder is that the prompt changes to SQL, after this error (like nothing happened).

I don't know what to do, honestly. I have tried everything that I found in the search section until the moment, but nothing helped. Can you please lay it out to me, in a simple form so that anyone could understand? My knowledge is limited, this is the first time when I play with Oracle.