For customers who are looking for URL Rewrite functionality and are hosted on our Windows 2008, IIS 7.5 hosting, please see http://knowledge.3essentials.com/web-hosting/article/1256/URL-Rewrite-mod_rewrite-for-Windows-IIS-7.x.html

For customers who are looking for a Windows/IIS functionality that works like Apache's mod_rewrite, and are hosted on our Windows 2003, IIS 6.0 hosting, IIS 6 webserver does not provide this functionality by default.  The "htaccess" file does not exist within the Windows\IIS world... putting an htaccess file in your Windows IIS site has no effect, as IIS has no feature/function which checks for or uses directives in such a file.  However, there are some 3rd party solutions available to provide this type of feature.  3Essentials has done basic functionality testing on the following two 3rd party URL rewrite solutions:

1. IIRF ISAPI Rewrite at http://iirf.codeplex.com/
2. Helicon's Isapi_rewrite available at http://www.isapirewrite.com

We can install either on your site for you, on any shared hosting or dedicated hosting servers.  You are responsible for ensuring your usage adheres to applicable usage licensing if you are utilizing freeware/GNU style licensing.  If you are utilizing a version which requires a purchased license, 3Essentials has not purchased server-wide (or enterprise-wide) licenses for either of the above products, and as such, if you wish to run one a version which requires a purchased license, you will need to provide 3Essentials the necessary license/key required for the installation on your site.

3Essentials does not provide any warranty of any kind for their usage, function, or impact to your site.  You bear all risks when you chose to utilize 3rd party applications for your site.  Additionally, we provide installation and default configuration only, for support of either product we refer you to the developer or developer community. 

If you use a free version, you are responsible for ensuring you are properly adhering to the free usage licensing requirements of the developer.

Please note the following limitations on what versions can be installed on which type of our hosting plans:

• IIRF ISAPI Rewrite is available free of cost and can be installed on our Shared Hosting plans (because it allows each site to be enabled and configured independently), and on Virtual or Dedicated Servers (standard or managed).  
• Helicon's Isapi_rewrite LITE version, which is free, cannot installed on our Shared Hosting plans because the lite version is a serverwide installation, and does not provide for a site-by-site configuraiton option.  Customers with virtual or dedicated servers can choose to install this on their virtual or dedicated servers, however it is important to note the following WARNING:  ALL sites on the server will have the same, single rewriting ruleset applied.
• Helicon's Isapi_rewrite FULL version can be installed on our Shared Hosting plans.  If you choose Helicon's Isapi_rewrite  you'll have to purchase a license from http://www.isapirewrite.com/ and it will need to be included in the rewriter's ini file.

SAMPLE IIRF CONFIG/REWRITE RULES FOR WORDPRESS

• Save this as your isapirewrite4.ini file
• has not been tested on all versions of IIRF's ISAPI Rewrite or with all versions of Wordpress. It is provided AS IS, 3Essentials does not vouch for it's accuracy.
• 3Essentials does not provide any warranty of any kind for their usage, function, or impact to your site.  You bear all risks when you chose to utilize 3rd party applications for your site.  Additionally, we provide installation and default configuration only, for support of either product we refer you to the developer or developer community. 

IsapiRewrite4.ini file contents:

# MaxMatchCount
#
# Specifies the maximum number of sub-expression matches to
# capture for a single pattern. This specifies the size of the
# array in the C module.  If you have a pattern with more than
# the default number of matches, set this number.
#
# The default is 10.

MaxMatchCount 10

#
# /content/blogcategory/0/33/
#
# should translate to
#
# /index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=0&Itemid=33

#RewriteRule ^/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/$  /index.php?option=com_$1&task=$2&id=$3&item=$4
RewriteRule ^/sitemap.xml$   - [L]
RewriteRule ^/(?!index.php)(?!wp-)(.*)$ /index.php/$1