anyone using .htaccess on xampp?

[Sic]

I'm trying to use mod_rewrite on xampp and I've got a problem that I've narrowed down to implementing .htaccess. I've got a rewrite rule

<IfModule rewrite_module>
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^/shortcut$ /feeds
</IfModule>

obviously nice and simple - this works when in httpd.conf but it doesn't work if I create an htaccess file in my root directory and place the exact same rule in there! can anyone think why this might be? I've tried chmod 777 the .htaccess, that doesn't work. I'm tailing my error log and that's not throwing anything related to htaccess so I'm completely stuck! AllowOverride is set to all everywhere in httpd.conf.

can anyone help?

 

[Sic]

yeah, mod rewrite's working but it won't allow me to do it via htaccess, only if the rewrite rules are defined in httpd.conf

 

[Sic]

I didn't, but now I do and it's still not working it's not a huge deal, I'll just have to use my conf file for mod rewriting and copy it to an htaccess when I put it on a server