Joomla! 2.5 - IIS - URL Rewite Rules - 500 Server Error

[epsoftwa]

We have installed Joomla 2.5.11 on a Windows IIS (many time now). We have also installed the URL Rewrite Module.

We are using the following rules in our web.config file for each domain:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
<system.webServer>
<rewrite>
<rules>
<clear />
<rule name="Joomla URL Rewrite">
<match url="^([^/]+)/?$" />
<action type="Rewrite" url="index.php/" />
<conditions>
<add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="Pattern" negate="true" pattern="robots\.txt" />
</conditions>
</rule>
<rule name="Common Exploit Blocking" stopProcessing="true">
<match url="^(.*)$" />
<conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAny">
<add input="{QUERY_STRING}" pattern="mosConfig_[a-zA-Z_]{1,21}(=|\%3D)" />
<add input="{QUERY_STRING}" pattern="base64_encode.*\(.*\)" />
<add input="{QUERY_STRING}" pattern="(\<|%3C).*script.*(\>|%3E)" />
<add input="{QUERY_STRING}" pattern="GLOBALS(=|\[|\%[0-9A-Z]{0,2})" />
<add input="{QUERY_STRING}" pattern="_REQUEST(=|\[|\%[0-9A-Z]{0,2})" />
</conditions>
<action type="Redirect" url="index.php" appendQueryString="false" redirectType="SeeOther" />
</rule>
<rule name="Joomla Search Rule" stopProcessing="true">
<match url="(.*)" ignoreCase="true" />
<conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll">
<add input="{URL}" pattern="^/search.php" ignoreCase="true" />
</conditions>
<action type="Rewrite" url="/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4" />
</rule>
<rule name="Joomla Main Rewrite Rule" stopProcessing="true">
<match url="(.*)" ignoreCase="true" />
<conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll">
<add input="{URL}" pattern="(/[^.]*|\.(php|html?|feed|pdf|raw))$" />
<add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true" />
<add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsDirectory" negate="true" />
</conditions>
<action type="Rewrite" url="index.php/" />
</rule>
</rules>
</rewrite>
<caching>
<profiles>
<add extension=".php" policy="DisableCache" kernelCachePolicy="DisableCache" />
</profiles>
</caching>
</system.webServer>
</configuration>

The front-end works as expected giving user friendly urls such as "www.ourdomain.com.au/contact-us" (no quotes of course).

The back-end is where we are having issues. When trying to create a new menu item we get a 500 Server Error.

We are currently bypassing this error by copying an existing menu item and modifying it to create a new menu item.

The 500 server error also happens when installing some (not all) components / modules / plugins.

We currently bypass this by removing everything after index.php and hitting enter, we then find that the component / module / plugin has installed successfully.

Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

[filim]

We have installed Joomla 2.5.11 on a Windows IIS (many time now). We have also installed the URL Rewrite Module.

We are using the following rules in our web.config file for each domain:

http://docs.joomla.org/IIS

Enabling Search Engine Friendly (SEF) URLs

[epsoftwa]

Thanks for the reply filim.

We've covered the info in the links you suggested with not much luck...