Yea, XAMPP is a bit of a mess from what I remember of it. That's why I compiled my own LAMP server

A stab in the dark here.

Do you have:
in your .conf file? if not add it. This tells apache to look for .htaccess files

Find, in your vhost (should be in the <Directory> section):
And change it to (well for relevant directories ofc):
That directive basically tells apache what to do with .htaccess files when it finds them and what directives it will read.

Then give it a boot up the backside:
or
depending on your distro ofc.

I'll keep thinking about solutions, its quite hard for me atm coz my setup seems to be slightly different.

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mysql> SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE `users`.`clue` > 0;
Empty set (0.00 sec)