I upgraded my Xampp to version Xampp 5.6.12 since Drupal 8 need PHP to be 5.5.9 or better. I checked out a couple of my Drupal 7 website under the htdocs dir. They are working fine.
I installed clean drupal 8 in the same htdoc dir under "newd8" folder. I used instructions so that I don't do make any mistakes.
The installation is fine and the default homepage came up at "http://localhost/newd8" and admin login account is working.
BUT clicking on any of the admin menu items, I get "page not found" drupal error. for example, if I click on "people", it goes to the link "localhost/newd8/admin/people" but I get a "page not found" page.
If I modify the URL to include index.php, thus "localhost/newd8/index.php/admin/people", it works. I get the right page.
This seem to be for all the pages. if I manually add "index.php" at the appropriate place, I get the required page.
I have modified the base URL in the setting.php
file then its css file is not loaded properly even home page layout is totally disturbed
What am I missing?