Permalink issue – how to remove /index.php

Hello.

I installed WP today for the first time. All is working well.

I would like to use a custom URL structure without the /index.php included. For example: /%post_id%/%postname%/

As long as I include index.php, the custom URL works fine. When I remove it, I get a “500 Internal Server Error” message.

I read many articles on this topic and none of the suggestions seem to resolve the issue. I am using a shared host with Apache/Linux. A htaccess file was not created during the installation process nor when I changed the Permalink settings in the admin panel. Based on the articles I read, I created the htaccess file below.

The only other item to note is my WP is installed in the /blog directory on my server. Any advice on resolving this issue would be appreciated.

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /blog/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

Options FollowSymLinks