I found that FollowSimLinks is not how my server likes it spelled - I needed to change it to FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch, and I got the happy Successful Installation screen.
I am having a problem with mod_rewrite. phpinfo() shows mod_rewrite enabled, however silverstripe rewrite test says it is not. I created a simple test with two simple html files and a .htaccess file to rewrite one html file to the other, but that also does not display the second html file when the first's url is entered in the browser. I have the directories set in the httpd.conf file, but when I tried to add the FollowSimLinks option, when I restart apache, it responds "illegal option". I'm not an apache expert by any means, and don't know how to fix this. Can anyone clarify this for me? Thank you.