The lectures I take are recorded in Visual Web Developer 2005 Express but I have to do my work in Visual Studio 2008. Since I have problems with the SP1 I will for the moment not download VWD.

Where do I find Layout in the toolbar - was that cancelled out?

Where do I find "Position"?

Where do I find "Layer"?

Designer in 2008 is very different. First, make sure you have service pack installed. Next, have a look at this article

http://blogs.msdn.com/webdevtools/archive/2008/03/11/absolute-and-relative-positioning-in-visual-web-developer-2008-designer.aspx

as well as new training videos

http://blogs.msdn.com/webdevtools/archive/2009/04/20/new-series-of-video-tutorials-on-visual-web-developer-express-2008.aspx