Apache Options Directive

Be careful with the + and - before each of the options. To turn on server side includes use

Options +Includes
  

This will leave all other options as they were.

Out problem came from a .htaccess configuration which contained

Options Includes
  

This turned off all other options, including SymLinksIfOwnerMatch, which began causing forbidden 403 errors on our server.

  Forbidden
  You don't have permission to access ... on this server.
  

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/core.html#options