Problem running MVC3 app in IIS 7

Question

I am having a problem getting a MVC 3 project running in IIS7 on a computer running Windows 7 Home-64 bit. Here is what I did.

1. Installed IIS 7.
2. Accessed the server and got the IIS welcome page.
3. Created a directory named d:\MySite and copied the MVC application to it. (The MVC app is just the standard app that is created when you create a new MVC3 project in visual studio. It just displays a home page and an account logon page. It runs fine inside the Visual Studio development server and I also copied it out to my hosting site and it works fine there)
4. Started IIS management console.
5. Stopped the default site.
6. Added a new site named "MySite" with a physical directory of "d:\Mysite"
7. Changed the application pool named MySite to use .Net Framework 4.0, Integrated pipeline

When I access the site in the browser I get a list of the files in the d:\MySite directory. It is as if IIS is not recognizing the contents of d:\MySite as an MVC application.

What do I need to do to resolve this?

As requested, here is the web.config:

    <?xml version="1.0"?>
<!--
  For more information on how to configure your ASP.NET application, please visit
  http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=152368
  -->

<configuration>
  <connectionStrings>
    <add name="ApplicationServices"
         connectionString="data source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Integrated Security=SSPI;AttachDBFilename=|DataDirectory|aspnetdb.mdf;User Instance=true"
         providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
  </connectionStrings>

  <appSettings>
    <add key="ClientValidationEnabled" value="true"/> 
    <add key="UnobtrusiveJavaScriptEnabled" value="true"/> 
  </appSettings>

  <system.web>
    <compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.0">
      <assemblies>
        <add assembly="System.Web.Abstractions, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
        <add assembly="System.Web.Helpers, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
        <add assembly="System.Web.Routing, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
        <add assembly="System.Web.Mvc, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
        <add assembly="System.Web.WebPages, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
      </assemblies>
    </compilation>

    <authentication mode="Forms">
      <forms loginUrl="~/Account/LogOn" timeout="2880" />
    </authentication>

    <membership>
      <providers>
        <clear/>
        <add name="AspNetSqlMembershipProvider" type="System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider" connectionStringName="ApplicationServices"
             enablePasswordRetrieval="false" enablePasswordReset="true" requiresQuestionAndAnswer="false" requiresUniqueEmail="false"
             maxInvalidPasswordAttempts="5" minRequiredPasswordLength="6" minRequiredNonalphanumericCharacters="0" passwordAttemptWindow="10"
             applicationName="/" />
      </providers>
    </membership>

    <profile>
      <providers>
        <clear/>
        <add name="AspNetSqlProfileProvider" type="System.Web.Profile.SqlProfileProvider" connectionStringName="ApplicationServices" applicationName="/" />
      </providers>
    </profile>

    <roleManager enabled="false">
      <providers>
        <clear/>
        <add name="AspNetSqlRoleProvider" type="System.Web.Security.SqlRoleProvider" connectionStringName="ApplicationServices" applicationName="/" />
        <add name="AspNetWindowsTokenRoleProvider" type="System.Web.Security.WindowsTokenRoleProvider" applicationName="/" />
      </providers>
    </roleManager>

    <pages>
      <namespaces>
        <add namespace="System.Web.Helpers" />
        <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc" />
        <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Ajax" />
        <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Html" />
        <add namespace="System.Web.Routing" />
        <add namespace="System.Web.WebPages"/>
      </namespaces>
    </pages>
  </system.web>

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

  <runtime>
    <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
      <dependentAssembly>
        <assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Mvc" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" />
        <bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0-2.0.0.0" newVersion="3.0.0.0" />
      </dependentAssembly>
    </assemblyBinding>
  </runtime>
</configuration>

Answer 1

I didn't solve this problem until I install .net v4.0.30319 ,before that .net version on my machine is v4.0.30128 . It takes me a long time to figure out the problem,hope this can help someone.

Answer 2

I like to add some details:

After registering ASP.NET 4 using aspnet_regiis -i I also had to update the web application using aspnet_regiis -s W3SVC/1/ROOT/SampleApp1 in order to fix the problem.

The /1/ in W3SVC/1/ROOT/SampleApp1 is the instance of your web application. You can find it by looking into your IIS Manager in the column ID.

The ROOT/SampleApp1 in W3SVC/1/ROOT/SampleApp1 is your application path. If you want to update all sites, just do aspnet_regiis -s W3SVC/.

Afterwards it worked fine for me.

Answer 3

I think the majority of IIS7 website setup problems is due to folder security. If you try to create a website by copying the application folders directly from your dev environment to a folder not under wwwroot, the security on your folders will be wrong and you will fight it for hours getting ambiguous errors. The EASY way to get it correct, is to inspect and inetpub/wwwroot folder, examine it and add permissions to your folder, starting with computername\IIS_IUSRS and computername\Users. For mvc, make sure you have a web.config AND global.asax at the root. You do not need a default document for mvc and you should not allow directory browsing. If using aspnet_regiis, you may want to use the -ir if there are other sites being hosted on the machine.

Answer 4

I had 403.14 errors when running an MVC 3 website on the server. Server was 32 bit. 2008. IIS7. The problem was that the HTTP Redirection feature was not installed. Server Manager -> Roles -> Web Server -> Roles Services -> HTTP Redirection. This is the only thing that fixed it for me. The web.config needed no change.

Answer 5

I posted this question on "ServerFault" as well and got a resolution to the issue here.

The answer is:

Since IIS was installed after .NET 4, you likely need to run the aspnet_regiis.exe tool to register all the .NET 4 stuff with IIS.

Answer 6

Have you checked the websites default document in IIS is at the top of the list.

I think it defaults to default.asp with default.aspx either not there or at the bottom of the list