A number of times I had to check why .htaccess was not working on a localhost or a server. Different machines have different setting and whether it is a wamp server, windows or linux box, I always check .htaccess file itself first. The easiest way to check if .htaccess settings get picked up is to create one with minimal settings. I like to have it redirecting to some other website as a confirmation. Below is the example of the content, just copy and place it in your .htaccess to see if it works:

Options +FollowSymLinks
rewriteEngine on
rewriteRule ^test\.html$ http://www.hackcorp.com/index.php [R=301,L]

Now go to test.html on your server and if your .htaccess gets accessed by the apache, you should get redirected to this site – http://www.hackcorp.com/index.php. If not, start looking into your apache settings. Make sure that the basic settings are set correctly, such as mod_rewrite module is enabled in httpd.conf and AllowOverride All is set on the directory in the httpd.conf.

Wheather it is a simple error of misplacing .htaccess or wamp and windows not seing the file, the first step of checking if the settings get picked up is often overlooked.

P.S. Don’t forget that apache server needs to be restarted every time you make a change.

Please let me know if this post was helpful or if you would like to see more details on the topic.