title: Error 404 not found with .htaccess in folder on XAMPP/Apache
body: <p>I have a test server with XAMPP (Apache/PHP/MySQL) running on Windows Server 2003.</p>
  
  <p>I always used without problems .htaccess and .htpasswd files. On the site I'm working on I get <strong>ERROR 404 (yes! not 403)</strong> when trying to open any file inside the directory protected by <code>.htaccess</code>, which looks like:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;Files .htaccess&gt;
  order allow,deny
  deny from all
  &lt;/Files&gt;
  
  AuthName "Area riservata"
  AuthUserFile \WEB\TEST\keys\.htpasswd
  AuthType Basic
  require valid-user
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I changed the <code>.htpasswd</code> directory to the same of the <code>.htaccess</code> (<code>\WEB\TEST\public_html\admin\.htaccess</code>) file without success!</p>
  
  <p>If I remove the file everything works fine: apache logs and error logs say nothing.</p>
  
  <p>Where is the problem/error?</p>
  
  <p><strong>EDIT</strong></p>
  
  <p>On my <code>DOCUMENT_ROOT</code> (<code>\WEB\TEST\public_html\</code>) I have this <code>.htaccess</code> file.
  I discovered that when commenting the last line (as following - no redirect to <code>index.php</code> for non file and symlinks) my problem disappear. I don't understand why!</p>
  
  <pre><code> RewriteEngine On
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/(it|de|fr|en)/(.*)$ [NC]
   RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/multi_html/%2 -s
   RewriteRule ^(it|de|fr|en)/(.*)$ /multi_html/$2?lingua=$1 [NC,L,QSA]
  
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-l
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-s
  #RewriteRule . index.php [NC,L]
  </code></pre>