i'm having quite an odd problem here that i dont really understand:
when running xampp on windows vista x64 when trying to access certain files all i am being served with is a 1x1 pixel transparent gif. There is also no record of the GET request in the xampp log (or error log for that matter as you would expect with a file not found).
for example:
http://localhost/ad/
correctly serves http://localhost/ad/index.php
however:
http://localhost/ad/index.php
serves a 1px x 1px gif image
by the same token every file linked to from http://localhost/ad/ returns a 1 px gif image inlcuding external style sheets, javascript files, ajax requests (using an ajax request and writing innerhtml simply outputs GIF89a) however anything placed within a php inlude or require statement works without a hitch (even though trying to access these included files through the browser will simply return the same gif image). I have been using apache/PHP/MySQL (usually on linux - however my linux server recently suffered a catastraphic failure) for quite some time and have never encountered anything like this.