UrlRewriter.NET with .NET 4.0 not working

Question

I have a web project that had UrlRewriter.NET installed and working fine on .NET 3.5 locally.

I then upgraded it to .NET 4.0 and this continued to work on my local PC in Visual Studio 2010.

When I moved this .NET 4.0 project to my server the url rewriting stopped working.

Here is my web.config (condensed for readability here)

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration> 
   <configSections>
      <section name="rewriter" requirePermission="false" type="Intelligencia.UrlRewriter.Configuration.RewriterConfigurationSectionHandler, Intelligencia.UrlRewriter"/>
   </configSections>

   <system.web>

   </system.web>
   <rewriter>
      <rewrite url="~/Neat-Url" to="~/Ugly-Url.aspx?id=1"/>
   </rewriter>
   <system.webServer>
       <validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration="false"/>
       <modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true">
           <add name="UrlRewriter" type="Intelligencia.UrlRewriter.RewriterHttpModule"/>
       </modules>
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

When put on the server it just returns a 404.

Interesting discovery. If I create a directory called /Neat-Url, the url rewriting starts working again and redirects to /Ugly-Url.aspx?id=1

Note: Yes I realize that .NET 4.0 has it's own url rewriting and I also have existing code that works with UrlRewriter.

So am I doomed because it is a server configuration issue or is there a way I can work around it?

[UPDATE]: Ok so I have determined something else. The url rewriter won't work unless the file or directory actually exists.

For example. If I want to redirect /Directory1 to /Directory1.aspx, /Directory1 must exist, then it all works fine.

If I want to redirect /File1.aspx to /File2.aspx this also works but File1.aspx must exist on the file system.

Otherwise I continue to get a 404. This seems solvable via .NET and has something to do with the web.config as calling upon File1.aspx gets passed to the runtime and gets an asp.net 404. Calling a directory just gets a web host 404.

[UPDATE 2]: I removed the

<httpModules> 

section from my web config, then added

<identity impersonate="false"/>

Then also changed validateIntegratedModeConfiguration="true". Still the same problem but at least is validates in Integrated Mode now.

[UPDATE 3]: I am now trying ManagedFusion yet still running into errors, but it seems more like a configuration error on my part rather than server support. I raised another question ManagedFusion Url Rewriting not working.

Hopefully that will solve my problems.

Answer 1

@gilly3 had the answer right! I've just tested it on my own system (IIS 8, .NET 4.5 framework)

Originally I had this in my web.config, which has been working for .NET framework 3.5 and below

<system.webServer>
    <validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration="false" />
    <modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true" />
</system.webServer>

so I changed it to below, and it works!

<system.webServer>
    <validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration="false" />
    <modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true">
       <add name="UrlRewriter" type="Intelligencia.UrlRewriter.RewriterHttpModule, Intelligencia.UrlRewriter" />
    </modules>
</system.webServer>