TheMadScientist - 12:44 am on Dec 4, 2009 (gmt 0)

Do you mean the httpd.conf or the root directory of your website?

The .htaccess solutions will work as long as the necessary module(s) are loaded on your server in the httpd.conf by your host if you do not have access... An .htaccess would go in the root directory of your website, not the root directory of your server.

IMO: The best thing for you to do since this is out of your area of expertise is probably to contact your host and ask them what the best practices are for your server configuration and then do exactly what they say, because even the .htaccess file, which you can either create or will have access to is a hidden file on your server, mainly because it's important to not only the basic operation of your site, but the overall efficiency. If you are even a character or two off in the file (even whitespace) you can generate a site-wide 500 Internal Server error, or even worse, could have an error which is unnoticed and has a negative impact on visitors or search engine rankings.

The preceding stated, my advice is to make the necessary changes, but:
1.) Make sure you know the proper configuration for your specific host and server.

2.) Make sure you triple-check the end result on multiple days in multiple browsers on multiple pages in multiple directories to ensure there are no situations where things do not work as expected. (Make sure you empty your browser cache in between checks to ensure you are getting a 'fresh' version of the page, too.)