Tag Archives: IIS

“virtual directory not being configured as an application in IIS”

Parser Error Message: It is an error to use a section registered as allowDefinition=’MachineToApplication’ beyond application level.  This error can be caused by a virtual directory not being configured as an application in IIS.

If you get this msg in your browser, then do:

  1. Open Settings/ControlPanel/AdminTools/IIS/(this computer)/WebSites/DefaultWebSite/(your branch dir)
  2. Right-click your project folder
  3. Select Properties
  4. Click the ‘Create’ button for ‘Application Name’
  5. Restart IIS
  6. Re-request your page

IIS fails to serve pages, although ping succeeds

After many failures to install VS2005 on my laptop, I got a second machine and reinstalled XP (and drivers) in order to bypass any app conflicts. This wiped out McAfee (which was part of the install image), and the XP install turned on its firewall by default in response.

I hadn’t noticed that the firewall was on, and when I tried to get IIS to serve a simple xml file from its doc root (c:inetpubwwwroot), only the hosting machine could access it. Yet ping from other machines to the IP name worked.

I looked in the IIS access log at c:Windowssystem32LogFilesW3SVC1ex*.log, and there weren’t even any access attempts from other machines shown. Googling “The page cannot be displayed” revealed the firewall involvement.

To disable the firewall, Start|Run, and enter “Firewall.cpl” and follow the prompts.