Currently I'm trying to convert our club to Joomla, and have the Joomla folder one underneath the root.
I've changed the htaccess.txt file to .htaccess, and marked each of the first two radio buttons in configuration manager to "Yes":
Use SEO friendly URLs, Use mod_rewrite
We are on a Linux machine.
The site is on GoDaddy, and with the economy package, so "our server" is shared w/ other GoDaddy customers. I called support, and they said to "try it" and wait a bit, and see if it works. Customer support said they can't turn "mod_rewrite" on b/c the server is shared w/ other customers. I did this, waited about 40minutes, tried it again, and got 404 errors.
Are we just outta luck, and have to use the long URLs?
...I waited for at least a half day/full day till I turned on the first two radio buttons (clicked "Yes").
One thing I noticed too...if you have an existing .php files that are the same name as the Article alias...it will go to that old page...at least mine did. So, rename your old .php file to something like file_orig.php...and that worked for me.
GoDaddy is extremely frustrating if you want to customize a Joomla installation on a shared plan. As long as I only change the theme, it works great. But I've tried several different times to setup a complex Joomla site on a variety of their shared hosting plans, and everytime I end up cancelling the account. I have their "Unlimited" shared plan right now, and after three months of trying to get a setup working properly with Virtue Mart, I'm giving up on it and using another host. Have never gotten SEO to work on it either.
Sorry I can't offer a solution, just wanted to share the pain.
"I've got a theory: it could be bunnies."
Donnie Maynard Christianson
artist+worldbuilder
Worldbuilder Media
www.worldbuilder.io
I use Servage and have been pretty happy with them. I've had occasional issues, but generally they seem to be how i've had something configured. FYI, Servage no longer has the Joomla autoinstall, but I think this works out better anyway since you can use the Rocket Launcher install.