This is driving the whole team crazy. There must be some simple mis-configured part of IIS or our Web Server, but every time we try to run out ASP.NET Web Application on IIS
Same issue on Server 2016, IIS 10, 500.19 error. I installed the redirect module and it worked. I do not know why this was not included by default.
https://www.iis.net/downloads/microsoft/url-rewrite#additionalDownloads
To be clear it looks like the web.config from IIS 7 will work, or is designed to work, but the lack of this module gives the really odd and unhelpful error. Googling takes you to a Microsoft page which insists that your site is corrupted or your web.config is corrupted. Neither seems to be the case.
That unhelpful page is here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/942055