Warning: fsockopen() FedEx setup

[tinabean]

I'm trying to setup and test FedEx Shipping on my localhost server.  On the checkout page, this is the error I'm receiving:

Warning: fsockopen() [function.fsockopen]: unable to connect to https://wsbeta.fedex.com:443/web-services:80 (Unable to find the socket transport "https" - did you forget to enable it when you configured PHP?) in C:\xampplite\htdocs\joomla\administrator\components\com_virtuemart\classes\shipping\fedex\fedexdc.php on line 430

What am I doing wrong???   

Virtuemart 1.1.6
Joomla 1.5.25