How would I redirect a non-php file's URL, without editing the .htaccess file?

So basically I need a way to take an exe file on my server and make a php function to toggle it's availability. I do not want to just rename, move, or delete the file, but redirect to a page explaining the file is temporarily unavail开发者_C百科able.

I know how to set a permanent redirect in .htaccess but this doesn't solve my problem since I'd like to make this automated via a php script....

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

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You won't be able to do this with PHP alone unless your web server is set up to process requests for .exe files as .php, or you add a rule in .htaccess. If the file exists, and .htaccess/server settings allow direct access to files, there's nothing PHP can do to stop access to it.

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Honestly the simplest way would probably be to write a PHP script that edits your .htaccess file and reloads it in apache. You could just run that script whenever you needed to enable/disable access.