V2.1 rewrite.dll wrong version included in msi packages?

Question

Hi,

I was experiencing some issues with rewrite rules on a MS 2019 Server IIS 10.x today, and decided to uninstall and reinstall my V2.1 rewrite module to rule out any fault with my installed rewrite fileset, associated reg settings and related IIS config.

I assume the V2.1 rewrite packages from the following URL, are the latest versions available https://www.iis.net/downloads/microsoft/url-rewrite

My install (app & features) shows the following descriptor : IIS URL Rewrite Module 2 - V7.2.1993

I traced and logged the msi install.

msiexec /L urlrewriteinstall.log /I rewrite_amd64_en-US.msi

And in the logs it shows many registry updates with 7.2.1993 versioning. example:

WriteRegistryValues: Key: \SOFTWARE\Microsoft\IIS Extensions\URL Rewrite, Name: Version, Value: 7.2.1993

No errors in my installation or logs, i shut down IIS before, ensured all IIS processes closed etc.

But for some puzzling reason - the actual rewrite.DLL installed are an earlier version. V7.1.1993.2336 , released back in 2018/09/20 (375KB)

The same is true for : Microsoft.Web.Iis.Rewrite.dll, Microsoft.Web.Management.Rewrite.Client.dll, Microsoft.Web.Management.Rewrite.dll. all using V7.1.x versions from 2018.

Repeated the process, uninstall and reinstall to confirm.. And same result.

Finally I unpacked the official msi packages to evaluate the included files : rewrite_amd64_en-US.msi, rewrite_x86_en-US.msi , low and behold both contain the earlier V7.1.x rewrite dll files.

msiexec /a C:\1_Downloads\IIS\rewrite_v2_1_amd64_en-US.msi /qb TARGETDIR=C:\Temp\RewriteExtract

In summary, can you clarify - is V7.1.1993.2336 the latest and greatest rewrite DLLs/assemblies?

That the msi assigned registry setting versions of V7.2.1993 is a mismatch/invalid entries, same goes for the package description version (shown within 'app & features').

Thanks!

Answer 1

It's normal that a Microsoft installer is marked as version A, but its artifacts are of version B. ASP.NET Core module as well as many other IIS extensions are shipped in the same way.