Client denied by server configuration

Apparently the .htaccess wasn't being read because I didn't allow configuration overrides; if I added "AllowOverride All" to my Virtual Hosts Directory, it worked—except for mod_rewrite, due to the following error:

Options FollowSymLinks or SymLinksIfOwnerMatch is off which implies that RewriteRule directive is forbidden

After I added in Options FollowSymLinks everything worked.

Final code:

<Directory "D:/Path/To/Sites">
  Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
  AllowOverride All
  Order Deny,Allow
  Allow from all
</Directory>

Check your options. You must have

Options +FollowSymLinks

to enable per-directory rewrite rules.

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/mod_rewrite.html#RewriteRule

You may be able to put the "Options +FollowSymLinks" directive in the same .htaccess file, if your server-level config allows it. The server-level config must set the "AllowOverride" directive to "all" or it must contain "Options" or "Options=FollowSymLinks" to allow you to do this. See http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/core.html#allowoverride

So, at least try with this as your .htaccess file:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -s [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -l [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^.*$ - [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^.*$ index.php [NC,L]

If that doesn't work, you'll need to dig up your server config and modify the options there.