[Peter Walker]

OK, I will give you my settings and so you can try them.

require_once( "$IP/includes/DefaultSettings.php" );
define( VB_SYSTEM_PATH, '/srv/www/vhosts/rifeforum.com/httpdocs/forum' );
require_once( "$IP/includes/AuthPlugin_vBSSO.php" ); 
require_once('extensions/Cite/Cite.php');
require_once( "$IP/extensions/ParserFunctions/ParserFunctions.php" );
$wgGroupPermissions['*']['createaccount'] = false;
$wgGroupPermissions['*' ]['edit'] = false; 
$wgGroupPermissions['*' ]['createpage'] = false; 
$wgGroupPermissions['*' ]['createtalk'] = false;
$wgGroupPermissions['user']['edit'] = true;

and then at the end of the file:

$wgScriptPath = "/w";         # Path to the actual files. This should already be there
$wgArticlePath = "/wiki/$1";  # Virtual path. This directory MUST be different from the one used in $wgScriptPath
$wgUsePathInfo = true;        # Enable use of pretty URLs

$wgWhitelist['sysop']['read']  = $wgBlacklist['*']['read'] = array("Special:Export", "Special:Listusers", "Special:Ipblocklist", "Special:Log", "Special:Allmessages");

$wgAllowCopyUploads = true;   # Allow for upload to be copied from an URL. Requires Special:Upload?source=web
$wgFileExtensions = array('png', 'gif', 'jpg', 'jpeg', 'doc', 'svg', 'xls', 'mpp', 'pdf', 'zip');

Note that I have a few extra features installed like cite.php for example.

Try this and report back.

I am using vb 3.8.4, MediaWiki 1.14.0, PHP 5.2.6, MySQL 5.0.45.

I hope this helps