Getting a “404 Not Found” error when “Preview Changes” is clicked

Question

I'm using Wordpress 3.3.1, installed on my local machine. I've gotten everything up and running, and I'm able to add posts and pages through the admin interface, but whenever I try to click the "preview changes" button from either one of my posts or pages, I get a 404 Not Found page instead. The URL appears to be correct, I've even tried copying the permalink and pasting it into the address bar, but it still gives me a 404 page. As far as I can tell the posts and pages are being added correctly, and I can view and edit their contents from the admin interface, just not from the main site itself. What could be causing this and how do I fix it?

Answer 1

What you have (probably) is an error with your .htaccess or your local
server wasn't set up / enabled to support permalinks... Try disabling the
Permalinks in admin settings and it should work great.

In most local host you can enable Permalinks support.. (its called a rewrite module)

Here is the option on my localhost (using WAMP)

.
Hope this helps.
Cheers, Sagive

Answer 2

Ok, I figured it out. I had a friend install this for me, and he told me that he didn't modify anything and it was a fresh install, but when I took a look at the Settings -> Permalinks screen I saw that there was a custom structure defined "/%categories%/", so I set it back to "default" and now it's working again.