Eliminating the index segment in a URL (htaccess)

[eluser]bretticus[/eluser]
Posting the same thing I responded to @cseguin with:

The following config item:
$config['index_page'] = "index.php";

...probably just facilitates calls to base_url() and anchor() etc.. Because mod_rewrite is rewriting URLs internally, the config change shouldn’t be a factor in getting 404 errors.

Are you absolutely certain you have mod rewrite enabled on your local machine? You can check with phpinfo().

Make sure you have mod_rewrite enabled locally.