Issues accessing admin after installing theme or module

Hi there.

I am a complete n00b to drupal so please forgive my ignorance.

I have tried to install two different themes and also the FCKeditor module (for which i followed the instructions). I am running drupal on a windows development server using wamp. I had to downgrade the php version to 5.2.9-2 as i kept getting warnings.

When i tried to install either the module or the templates I would get the following error:

Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in C:\wamp\www\drupal\includes\common.inc on line 511

The themes work but i cannot access the administration area at all. I then have to go and disable the theme or module in the database directly in order to be able to access the admin area.

Am I missing something? Is it a permissions issue?

Line 510-514 in my common.inc is this:

$response = '';
while (!feof($fp) && $chunk = fread($fp, 1024)) {
$response .= $chunk;
}
fclose($fp);

Is this just a simple fix or conflict that i am missing?

Thanks in advance. I hope the community can help?!