WP on Windows server forces /index.php/ in file paths

  • In settings I set up permalinks as custom: /%category%/%postname%/

    However, for any links to work I must have it set as: /index.php/%category%/%postname%/

    It seems that all posts and pages automatically get “filed” as https://www.domain.com/index.php/etc.. I have no clue how to not require the index.php subdirectory. I do not want the /index.php/ in the URLs.

    Example are on https://www.bibleornot.org and also on https://stevec828.mysite4now.net/wordpress/. (Note that I installed the new test wordpress in its own directory). On the new test blog the links don’t work unless you hack the URL with /index.php/ after /wordpress/ and before the post or page name. So, on Bible I stuck the /index.php/ in the permalink path in settings, but on the new one I didn’t, but the links are actually built with /index.php/ in the path.

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  • To fully take advantage of custom permalinks you will likely need to switch to a server running Apache. You can also do it on a server with nginx, etc, but that requires a little more know-how and a good bit of access to the server. Running on an Apache server allows you to use mod_rewrite and full utilize this feature.

    If you have full access to the IIS server you can install (I think it’s $99) ISAPI Rewrite which provides mod_rewrite like functionality.

    Alternatively, you can set IIS to load a custom 404 page that in turn has logic to insert the index.php so that the page will load properly. Of course, when the page exists you wouldn’t return a 404, but a 200.

    There are also other hacks out there that I once tracked down by searching for things like “iis permalinks”. The one I used and that worked fairly well basically intercepted the URL, added the index.php, and then set one of the server variables to this new URL. WordPress then used the server variable to load the correct page. I didn’t keep the link since I no longer use IIS.

    Ultimately though I think you’ll regret not switching to Apache. I used IIS for a couple of years with WordPress and then conceded defeat due to all of the extra hacks and maintenance required.

    Thread Starter stevec828

    (@stevec828)

    Thanks guys. It seems like the resounding consensus is get off of Windows. I guess I’ll wind up doing that at some point if i keep working with WP.

    Good to hear from you Marios, i hope things are well. – Steve C.

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