Friendly URLs in XAMPP
Update: this post is pretty old. I recommend you give Local a try.
A very common requirement for today’s apps is having “friendly” or clean URLs. We can achieve that easily in XAMPP, following these steps:
First, enable Apache’s mod_rewrite module:
Edit httpd.conf file under [xampp-install-directory]/apache/conf. On Windows, that’s typically C:\xampp.
Uncomment:#LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
So it stays:LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
Lastly, search for AllowOverride None and replace with AllowOverride All.
In order for the changes to take effect, we need to restart the server.
Source: Murfitt.net http://murfitt.net/blog/dan/2007/10/04/xampp-and-modrewrite-getting-clean-urls-work