SharePoint 2007 chooses a random port for administration. This is particularly difficult when choosing the single server configuration. Use the stsadm command to change the administration port number on MOSS 2007 / WSS 3.0. Go to this directory:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN>

Enter this command:

stsadm -o setadminport -port 4444

It will take a bit of time, but you should see:

Operation completed successfully.

In this example we changed the port to number 4444. Use whatever port you like. For earlier versions of SharePoint you might need to change the shortcut in the start menu so that the port matches, but with SharePoint 2007 the above command works as-is.