Does it run well under IIS

I don’t know much about running under IIS.
It is clear though, that you don’t need any rewrite module if you can go with the default permalinks, over index.php.

Otherwise …

Seems to be a lot of folks running it on IIS. I haven’t heard any mention of lockups myself, but can’t say for sure.

rewrite rules are necessary if you want nice URLs. otherwise, shouldn’t need them at all.

-d

I found a fix for the permalink problem on IIS.
Lots of folks seem to have trouble with this.
I cannot test it myself, as I don’t have IIS available, but here it is:
https://www.simmonsconsulting.com/wordpress/2005/11/22/wordpress-permalinks-on-iis/

Good luck!

I’ve got WordPress 2.0 running under IIS, including proper permalinks. Check out my article on it: Running WordPress 2.0 under IIS

Really clear tutorial on a rather complicated matter!