little Off-Topic but I know that there are a lot People using XAMPP for testing. I run into a Problem with the newest Version 1.5.1 with REWRITE-URL
For use rewrite-url you have to edit the ../xampp/apache/conf/http.conf
1. uncomment the Line (remove the # at the beginning)
2. search forLoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
and replace withAllowOverride None
AllowOverride All