I’ve got Vista Ultimate running on my freshly paved machine, and I finally got to a point where I want to get all my .NET stuff back and operational.

I retrieved my website from VSS (fortunately, it was all checked in and up on my server), and went to setup the Virtual Directory in IIS. Where’s IIS?

Come to find out Vista doesn’t install it by default, but it’s easy to get.

Click Control Panel, Program and Features, then

Click the Turn Windows Features On or Off

Find IIS in the list and check it. You might also want to check the FTP server while you’re there, but it’s not absolutely necessary.

Once, it’s installed, you’ll find an “Internet Information Services Manager” item on your Administrative Tools menu.

With DotNetNuke, one of the first things you have to do is change the Default Document to include Default.ASPX, the option is highlighted above.

When I tried this, I got an “Access is denied” error. Grrrr. More Vista Access Control crap, I thought.

I spent almost an hour digging around for any settings in the IIS Manager that I might need to change to be able to make this pretty innocuous change to the website config. Nothing.

Then, I happened to think….Maybe it’s because I pulled all the files from VSS. When you do that, files are automatically marked READONLY.

A little experimenting later, and turns out, you need to make sure that WEB.CONFIG (in the root of your site’s virtual directory), is NOT READ ONLY.

Duh.

I have to say thought, that error message window could use just a tad more information. Even the name of the file with the problem (WEB.CONFIG) would have probably saved me an hour of digging.

Seems to me error dialogs like this ought to always have a “»more” button on them. Most people will never click it, and it’d keep the general UI light and fluffy. But when you need it, it’d be there.

Pie in the sky, I suppose.