XAMPP

[eluser]danmontgomery[/eluser]
[quote author="nZac" date="1275429916"]So really you are getting some flavor of Apache, still Apache, but tweaked based on how the people that compiled the package thought would be easiest.[/quote]

This is exactly right...

This thread is confusing... You've never said what your actual problem is, and even said at one point that it was working. You also seem to be confusing virtual hosts and virtual machines, which are not remotely the same thing. (And neither would affect the ability to remove index.php from URLs)

If you're still unable to remove index.php from your URLs, and you'd like some help, maybe you should post some details on what isn't working, what you've tried, error messages, etc.

[eluser]nZac[/eluser]
noctrum, I apologize for the confusion. Here is where I am at, my goals and what not.

Recently I decided to shut down my remote server which was hosted through a company called eVerity because I do not use it that often. I would like to set up a local web server that mirrors what I had with them. To accomplish that goal, I installed MAMP. MAMP just wasn't working for me. So I un installed MAMP and installed XAMPP. XAMPP was even more convoluted than MAMP. I stuck with it a little longer and really tried to fix the problems, which is where this thread started, and I did fix the index.php problems. Then, skunkbad recommended using vhosts. At first I thought he was referring to a virtual machine, however now I do understand what he is talking about. I had a small brain fart.

Then I started thinking, I wish I could run a local web server through a virtual machine and treat it as a remote server. So I tried VMfusion, and that is very confusing and really didn't work how I wanted it to.

What I want to be able to do:
1. Work locally
2. Simulate a standard hosting environment
3. Use GIT or Mercurial
4. Simple to configure

What are my options:
1. MAMP/XAMPP
2. Set up Apache/PHP/MySQL independently
3. Buy hosting again and mount a disk
4. Virtual Machine with linux
5. Open to suggestions...

That clear it up?

[eluser]n0xie[/eluser]
I'm not really a big fan of XAMPP. It tends to make things more difficult instead of easier. I would recommend MAMP if you are a Macfag, but if you're really want to a development environment which works, I would suggest just installing Linux. Most of these types of problems disappear when running under Linux.

[eluser]Unknown[/eluser]
ok, so this post helped me. I am using Xampp on XP, ya still XP. I have 2 SSL and one regular.
I did the normal hosts file stuff and had trouble with SSL until the post way above showed the certificate entries, plus the final great step was to put the site name in the directive rather than *:443.. that just kicked me to Xampp main page. so here you go. The SSL is used on a codeigniter site which I have forcing a redirect to https and it still works index.php and all. I hope it helps someone.

hosts file is:
127.0.0.1 websiteA.local
127.0.0.1 websiteB.local
127.0.0.1 websiteC.local

Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

NameVirtualHost *
<VirtualHost *>
DocumentRoot "K:\xampp\htdocs"
ServerName localhost
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost websiteA.local:443>
DocumentRoot "K:\xampp\htdocs\websiteA"
ServerName websiteA.local
SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile conf/ssl.crt/server.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile conf/ssl.key/server.key

<Directory "K:\xampp\htdocs\websiteA">
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI
RewriteEngine On
AllowOverride All
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost websiteB.local:443>
DocumentRoot "K:\xampp\htdocs\websiteB"
ServerNamewebsiteB.local
SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile conf/ssl.crt/server.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile conf/ssl.key/server.key

<Directory "K:\xampp\htdocs\websiteB">
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI
RewriteEngine On
AllowOverride All
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost websiteC.local:80>
DocumentRoot "K:\xampp\htdocs\websiteC"
ServerName websiteC.local
<Directory "K:\xampp\htdocs\websiteC">
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>

That worked although I am sure you can remove stuff or add to it. Took several hours to get this combination right.

[eluser]InsiteFX[/eluser]
XAMPP needs to be installed in the root of your hard drive not in a sub folder.

c:\xampp