Microsoft is now one step closer to Apache with its own Internet Information Services. This because the Redmond company made available for download the bits of the Microsoft URL Rewrite Module for IIS 7.0 RTW (released to web). Essentially, the URL rewrite module replicates the extension functionality already available for Apache. Served in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors for IIS 7.0 on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista Service Pack 1, the IIS7 URL Rewrite Extension takes URL manipulation to a whole different level, as far as Microsoft's proprietary technologies are concerned.

“IIS team has made the URL Rewrite Module for IIS 7.0 Release To Web (RTW) available for download. This is a final, production-ready release that is officially supported by Microsoft,” revealed Ruslan Yakushev, a Program Manager on the Microsoft IIS team in charge of FastCGI and PHP support. “If you already have Go Live release of URL Rewrite module installed then the installation package will upgrade it to RTW release. All rewrite rules in applicationHost.config and web.config files will be preserved. Note that system reboot may be necessary when upgrading from Go Live to RTW release.”

Having clear and comprehensive URLs is one of the fundamental rules of search engine optimization. In this regard, URL Rewrite Module for IIS 7.0 will manage to make URLs friendlier to search engines when it comes down to the indexing process. But this only if URL Rewrite rules are created and manipulated with the extension.

“The installer for URL Rewrite module includes an update for ASP.NET runtime. The update has fixes for bugs specific to URL rewriting. The update is applied only if the machine where URL Rewrite module is being installed has .NET Framework version 3.5 SP1 or higher. If required version of .NET Framework is installed after URL Rewrite module has been installed, then the ASP.NET update can be applied by re-running URL Rewrite module installer in repair mode,” Yakushev stated.

According to Microsoft, the URL Rewrite module supports features including: rules-based URL rewriting engine, regular expression pattern matching, wildcard pattern matching, global and distributed rewrite rules; access to server variables and http headers, etc.

The Microsoft URL Rewrite Module for IIS 7.0 (x86) and (x64) are available for download here.