IIS7 remove file extension

Question

I'm trying to configure IIS7 (Windows Server 2008) so that I can use URL's that do not include the file extension (i.e. somepage.php would become http://DOMAIN/somepage)

I'm using the URL rewrite tool in IIS7, and have the following rule:

Match URL

Requested URL - Matches the pattern

Using: Wildcards

Pattern: /*

No conditions.

Action

Action Type: Rewrite

Action properties - Rewrite URL: {R:1}.php, append query string

It's returning a 404 error. When I use the Test Pattern tool, it appears to work, and R:1 is what I want to add before the file extension. Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Answer 1

You need to change the rule to use regular expressions instead of wildcards. This is because the R:1 is a regexp backreference.

Also - you probably want your pattern to be (.*) for it to be R:1 (most likely it will be R:0 without the parens - R:0 is the backreference for "the entire match")

Check out http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/497/user-friendly-url---rule-template/ for lots of info on the user friendly URL portion of URL Rewrite.