Making WordPress Permalinks Work without mod_rewrite

Thanks JTPratt Media for saving the day. Today my client Full Circle Farm had some trouble getting Friendly URL permalinks set on their WordPress site, after a little review I became painfully aware that they were using a Windows web hosting account with GoDaddy.

Indeed his process worked just fine for me, posted below and originally here. However, I was unable to locate the web.config file. So I created one using the final piece of code he provided. I create the XML using Dreamweaver, uploaded it via FTP to the server as web.config.xml – then I removed the “.xml” from the file name. Viola!

For more information visit the Using Permalinks page in the WordPress Codex.

In the root of the Windows web site find a file called “web.config” (an XML file), and download it to your local PC. Open it in a text editor (like Notepad), and you’ll see something like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
<system.webServer>
<rewrite>
<rules/>
</rewrite>
</system.webServer>
</configuration> 

Just change that to this, and save on your local PC, and re-upload in FTP:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
<system.webServer>
<rewrite>
<rules>
<rule name="Main Rule" stopProcessing="true">
<match url=".*" />
<conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll">
<add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true" />
<add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsDirectory" negate="true" />
</conditions>
<action type="Rewrite" url="index.php/{R:0}" />
</rule>
</rules>
</rewrite>
</system.webServer>
</configuration>

This IIS fix is not a complete fix for mod_rewrite, but you will be able to get “pretty permalinks” working in WordPress hosted on Windows web hosting.