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I have a ASP.NET 1.1 application running on IIS 6 / Windows Server 2003. It's our application, but we're trying to specifically replicate a customer's installation so the app folder has been copied entirely from their production server onto our test machine, and then we've created the Virtual Directory and Web Application for IIS manually.

Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager:

  • Application Pools
  • Web Sites
    • Default Web Site
      • xxxxx (Virtual Directory)
        • yyyyy (Web Application)
  • Web Service Extensions

The problem I have is that when we access the app, we get the standard IIS security error message:

The page cannot be displayed
You have attempted to execute a CGI, ISAPI, or other executable program from a directory that does not allow programs to be executed. 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please try the following:

•Contact the Web site administrator if you believe this directory should allow execute access.
HTTP Error 403.1 - Forbidden: Execute access is denied.
Internet Information Services (IIS)

Now this is pretty standard, except as far as I can see it's not anything so simple.

I have checked:

  • IIS user has read access to the directory
  • IIS user and Network Service users have read/write access to the Temporary ASP.NET Files folder
  • Virtual directory is set to the correct version of ASP.NET
  • ASP.NET 1.1 Web Service Extension is allowed
  • Virtual directory has the correct mappings of file extensions and all verbs to the aspnet 1.1 DLL
  • Virtual directory properties allow Scripts and Executables to be run
  • Anonymous access is turned on and the username and password is correct

What am I missing?

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14

When you did create an application on IIS did you check allow script execution ? You need to turn two first choices on in order to execute anything from this application including virtual directory you have made.

Right click on parent application > Home Directory tab > Executive Permissions set to Scripts only...

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  • 1
    I think what you mean is if the Web Application (yyyyy) is one level down from the Virtual Directory (xxxxx) that the properties of each are individually set to allow Script execution? Turns out you're right and the lower level (yyyyy) doesn't override the higher level (xxxxx) in this case, so that fixed it. – Coxy Jun 2 '10 at 0:50
  • It could be either upper level does not override or upper level set to not execute script... I couldn't see your IIS settings but when scripts cannot be executed this is the first thing to look for... – eugeneK Jun 2 '10 at 7:45
  • I just got caught by this with a static website. The mechanism that enables the default content pages (e.g. index.htm) presumably needs this permission granted in order to function. I would have thought the UI would have taken care of that. Time to retire the old IIS 6 server I think! – MarkHone Jan 31 '14 at 9:19
  • Thanks Eugene. This helped me with an old system, too. – jp2code Feb 19 '14 at 15:17
7

You might also need to check the "Edit Feature Permissions..." button on the right pane of the Handler Mappings settings for the specific application and enable "Execute". This is what held my co-workers and I for 3 hours with otherwise pretty identical symptoms.

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