Running IIS 5 on Win 2000 Pro machine - only for development purposes,
not for live production.

I have never been able to get .ASP pages to display on my machine - I
continually get a 404 error.  (They will work fine if I upload them to
my webhost's machine - therefore isolating the problem to my machine).

I can view HTML pages just fine.  For example, if I use the browser to
visit http://mymachine/testweb/plain.htm, it will come up just fine.

If I try http://mymachine/testweb/test.asp, I will get a 404 error (I
know the file is there and I have not typed it incorrectly).

If I browse to the .ASP page in IE and try to open it, it will launch
Front Page 2002.

I'm not sure if this matters, but I did also create a virtual
directory and point it to the directory containing the test.asp page.

I am assuming that I have IIS installed correctly, but I really don't
know for sure.  I never play around with that type of part of my
computer - I'm one of those folks that if it works, don't touch it. 
My only problem seems to be the ASP pages.

I have a huge pile of other websites in my Inetput/wwwroot directory,
so I want to pretty careful to make sure that I don't hurt anything
with my other files.

I read last night on some IIS newsgroups about the Application
Mappings.  I'm wondering if that might be part of the issue.  I
noticed that everything listed was going to 404.dll.  I changed ASP,
CER, CDX and ASA to point to ASP.DLL.

The directory that the test.asp file is in has Read and Scripts
permissions.

I have never been able to get .ASP files to work on my machine.  A
while back I installed "IIS Lockdown" as recommended by Microsoft
Security Website.  However, the ASP pages did not work before this
either.

I would be happy to try and provide any additional information and
would greatly appreciate an answer.  I am quite a novice at this part
of Win 2K, so hand holding would be great.

Thanks for any help you can offer.  I will be at my PC most of the
day, so if you need clarification, I should be pretty quick in
responding.

Best regards,

WebDesignGuy

---

Request for Question Clarification by pwizard-ga on 16 Dec 2002 07:02 PST

Would it be ok to turn my comments on this question into an offical
answer so that the question can be closed out? You can still "Ask For
Clarification" once the question is answered and we can still exchange
comments if necessary.

Just let me know. Thanks!

-PWizard

---

Clarification of Question by webdesignguy-ga on 16 Dec 2002 08:14 PST

Hi,

Yes that would be just dandy.  Sorry about the delay, I wasn't really
in on the weekend and was debating about uninstalling/reinstalling or
not.

Please go ahead the convert it to an answer.

Best regards,

WebDesignGuy

Greetings webdesignguy,

Regarding your question about your ASP pages not working from IIS5,
based on our troubleshooting sessions included in the comments section
of this question, it looks like the best solution to your problem is
going to be a uninstall/reinstall of the IIS5 application.

We determined that at least one of the tabs in the IIS configuration
having to do with ASP is completely missing and for some reason your
application mappings were app pointing to invalid dll files. I'm not
sure how those settings got that way, but trying to manually correct
them proved to be fruitless. To me, it looks like either the
application wasn't installed properly or completely the first time
around. I recommend a complete uninstall/reinstall of IIS5, backing up
all of the websites included (including the metabase). Hopefully this
will correct the issue by reloading all of the IIS/ASP dll and content
files. If this does not correct the issue, a deeper problem exists,
most likely within the registry or within the Windows 2000 structure.
A fresh install of Windows 2000 + IIS5 may be the only way to correct
the issue at that point.

I wish we could have come up with a fast and easy way to get your ASP
pages working correctly, but IIS is a fairly complex application that
spans deep into the Windows 2000 system. I was happy to work with you
on this issue and will be happy to provide you with additional help if
necessary. Just "Ask for Clarification" if I can be of further
assistance.

Good luck with your websites!

Sincerely,
PWizard

Greetings webdesignguy,

I'd like to first direct you to the following TechNet article:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;309051

Could you please go through the steps outlined in this article (to the
best of your ability) and see if any of them correct your problem?

Before compiling an answer, I would first like to determine whether
you have a simple configuration problem with IIS or whether you may
have something more serious going on with your system.

Thanks,
PWizard
Google Answers Researcher

Thanks for the quick response...

I printed off the article and started to work through it.  Before I go
nuts changing everything, perhaps my problem is right at the start.

In step 1, it refers to having a Global.asa file.  In the test web
that I have right now, there is no Global.asa file.  Is that the
problem right off the bat?

Thanks,

WebDesignGuy

I don't believe so. It's an optional file that's used to store
permissions and settings. Here's more info on the file:

http://www.intermedia.net/support/kb/default.asp?id=316

Since the Technet article suggests renaming it and then trying the ASP
code, I would also think that ASP should run fine without this file. I
think they were trying to eliminate this file as being the source of
the problem. Please let me know how the rest of your troubleshooting
sesion goes. Thanks!

-PWizard
Google Answers Researcher

Ok, I ignored the Global.asa file - my guess was that I didn't need it
since I haven't used it in some simple sites with ASP (when running on
a live server).

I tried setting the application protection to low.  Still no go.

The next said to do the following: "If ASP pages still do not load,
check Component Services in Administrative Tools to ensure that you
can view the IIS packages. This ensures that Component Services is not
failing."

Do you know what I am supposed to be seeing?  What are the IIS
packages that they refer to?

Under the Default Website, I see all of my list of sites, some of
which have the funky icon which I suppose looks like a package.  Am I
supposed to be able to see the directories for IISsamples (which is
above wwwroot inside of inetpub)?

Thanks again,

WebDesignGuy

This step wants you to go to Start --> Settings --> Control Panel -->
Administrative Tools --> Component Services. Under Component Services,
you should see Computers, then expand to My Computer. You should then
see COM+ Applications and Distributed Transaction Coordinator. Expand
COM+ Applications and you should see your IIS "packages". There should
be at least 4 of them (IIS In Process Applications, IIS Out of
Process, IIS Utils, etc). If they are missing, this is most likely
your problem. This is what it's wanting you to check for. You can
right click on these packages to "start" them, but they should already
be started up by default.

-PWizard

Thanks again for the info.

I did as you suggested and sure enough I had IIS In Process
Applications, IIS Out of Process, IIS Utils and then 5 of IIS {Default
website//Root//NameOfSite}.

It is rather obvious that I don't know much at all about IIS etc.  I'm
wondering if it has anything to do with the "Application Mappings". 
When I select properties on one of my sites inside of IIS and then go
to Application Configurations and then look at the Application
Mappings, it shows that most are set to 'inetsrv\404.dll'.  I did
change ASP and ASA to go to asp.dll.  Any guess if it is something
wrong in the mappings section?  It seems curious to me that I am
getting a 404 error and many of these are pointing to 404.dll.

Thanks again.

WebDesignGuy

Yes, it does sound odd that you had those settings in your application
mappings. I can tell you the settings that we use in our IIS5
environment (we use ASP):

APP MAPPINGS:

.asa, .asp, .cdx, .cer all go to asp.dll with the following options
(under EDIT):
Limit to: OPTIONS,GET,HEAD,POST,TRACE
Script Engine CHECKED.

We don't have any documents pointing to 404.dll. 

On the next tab, APP OPTIONS, we have:
Enable Session State CHECKED and enable Parent Paths CHECKED. Our
default ASP Launguage is VBScript.

The next tab, PROCESS OPTIONS, we have:
First two boxes checked. Cache all requested ASP files checked.

The last tab, APP DEBUGGING, we have:
Neither of the first two items checked. Send detailed ASP error
messages to client selected.

I would verify these settings with yours. Reboot the server if you
make any changes. Then try your asp files again and see what you get.
I'll cross my fingers for you.

-PWizard

I set my Application Mappings as you suggested, and the other options.
 Still no go.

However, one thing was a different.  I did not have a tab under
configuration for the "Process Options".  I'm assuming I should have
had one?

I just had mappings, options and debugging.

Does that help?

Thanks again,

WebDesignGuy

Well, to me it sounds like there is definitely something wrong with
your IIS5 installation. I couldn't find any references to that Process
Options tab being missing from your property sheet. Every server I
looked at had it on there. I feel like either something wasn't
installed correctly or completely with your IIS. My recommendation at
this point is to uninstall IIS completely and re-install. You can do
this from Add/Remove Program, then Add/Remove Windows Components. Make
sure you reboot after uninstallation before re-installing. Also, you
should probably re-apply SP3 or SP3 to this PC after you reinstall.
Hopefully this will correct your problems. Just make a backup of your
website(s) before doing this. I'm just not sure what else to
recommend. It's obvious by our previous troubleshooting that something
is wrong with the install, so this is probably the only way to correct
it. Please let me know how it goes.

-PWizard

Thanks again for the info.  It sounds like you might just be correct,
now that we have narrowed it down to a specific item that is missing.

I was rather hoping to not have to uninstall/reinstall etc, etc.

Perhaps I'll just develop on a live machine instead.  I'll ponder on
your advice.  Even though I have backed up my sites, it would be a
real pain to get them all back into wwwroot again.  Do you know if
they all get wiped out when uninstalling/reinstalling?

BTW, it appears that you "commented" rather than "answering".  How
does this system get you the $?

Thanks again,

WebDesignGuy

If you're satisfied with the comments I've provided you, I'll be happy
to turn this into an offical "answer" and compile what we've
discovered into readable format.

I don't believe that an uninstall will wipe out your site info, but I
haven't done it in quite a while, so I can't be for absolute certain.
Usually on an uninstall, just the application is removed and not
additional content you have added. Always have a backup just to be
sure though.

Here's an article regarding uninstalling and reinstalling IIS4. It
probably holds true for IIS5 as I didn't see a different article just
for that version.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;193152&

Just let me know how you would like for me to proceed. Thanks.

-PWizard