Thank you for the reply. I tried that and still get the following:
Warning Checking includes/configure.php
Warning Suggested .htaccess content
Success #### BOF SSU
Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

# Deny access from .htaccess
RewriteRule ^\.htaccess$ - [F]

RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*) index.php?/$1 [E=VAR1:$1,QSA]

#### EOF SSU
Warning Checking cache write permission

Any other ideas?