IIS 7.5 saving configuration settings to web.config with IIS Manager

iis-7.5

I installed IIS 7.5 (Windows 7) on two different PCs, one PC saves configuration to applicationHost.config and the other to web.config! Screenshot:

Configuration location differences

As you can see, the PC on the left does not contain the settings (they are stored in applicationHost.config) and the PC to the right does in fact store the settings in web.config.

I have not and hope not to modify the configuration files by hand and would like to do it using IIS Manager only.

Does anyone know why this happens or if there is some setting to force configuration to the web.config file? Thank you.

Edit: I am adding a screenshot of the applicationHost.config file (PC on the left) demonstrating how the configuration is stored in it instead of inside the web.config file.

enter image description here

Edit: Here are the steps that I am taking and I do make sure to work at the site level as suggested by Chris (having the site selected):

Create folder named junk.tst using Windows Explorer.
Copy all files and subfolders except for web.config from crop.tst (a working website) into junk.tst. Except for web.config, directory structures are identical.
Launch IIS Manager, click on ‘Sites’ then ‘Add web site’. Provide basic settings for website ‘junk.tst’. Use existing ‘classic’ application pool.
Clicking on site ‘junk.tst’, create bindings for ‘www.junk.tst’ and ‘junk.tst’.
Double click on ‘junk.tst’ so that the IIS icons are visible. Please note that the site ‘junk.tst’ is selected on the left hand column tree view.
Double click on the ‘Default Document’ icon and provide it (get rid of the other default docs).
Go back to the IIS icons. ‘junk.tst’ is still selected on left.
Double click on ‘Handler Mappings’ and ‘Add script map’ for my *.srf and another script map for my dll.
Site ‘www.junk.tst’ is now working and handles requests made to *.srf and *.dll

Now I inspect web.config and like above, the circled config is not stored within web.config

Best Answer

When you add the handlers, where are you doing it? Modifying at the site level will put them in web.config. Modifying them at the IIS level will put them in to applicationhost.config. My guess is that you edited them at the site level one one machine and IIS level on the other.

If these handlers are part of the site config then you should just copy the web.config along with the rest of the site - no need to add the configuration manually after deploying the site, IIS will pick the settings up from the web.config.

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Iis – ASP.NET custom configuration section declaration breaks IIS Manager Configuration Editor

Hey Kev. This worked for me right away using your examples. Here's where I placed everything:

Path:

%systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\config\schema\simpleconfig.xml

Content:

<configSchema>
  <sectionSchema name="SimpleConfigGroup">
    <element name="SimpleConfigSection">
      <attribute name="MySetting" 
                 type="string" 
                 validationType="nonEmptyString" />
    </element>
  </sectionSchema>
</configSchema>

Path:

%systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config (in <configSections> element).

Content:

<section name="SimpleConfigGroup" 
         overrideModeDefault="Allow" 
         allowDefinition="Everywhere" />

Path:

Site's web.config

Content:

  <SimpleConfigGroup>
    <SimpleConfigSection MySetting="Hello World" />
  </SimpleConfigGroup>

IIS 7.5 on Win server 2008 r2 useAppPoolCredentials

With regard to your second question about how to ensure that configuration changes are persisted to a site's web.config rather than applicationHost.config, this can be controlled via Feature Delegation.

If you navigate to the machine node of IIS Manager you will see an icon named "Feature Delegation":

enter image description here

Launch this IIS "applet" and you will be presented with a list of features that can have their configuration delegated to web.config.

Settings that are marked Read/Write will usually have their settings written to the web.config file. Settings that are marked Read Only will usually have their settings written to applicationHost.config and cannot be overridden in the web.config file.

As it so happens the <windowsAuthentication> configuration can be delegated to the web.config file.

Minor Gotcha:

Not all of the applets surface the full range of settings you can configure. A good example of this as it so happens is the <windowsAuthentication> useAppPoolCredentials attribute. It's no-where to be seen in the Authentication applet, not even under Advanced Settings.

However you can get at this value (and pretty much everything else) via the Configuration Editor. If you navigate to your web site's node in the left hand pane in IIS manager you will see this icon under Management:

enter image description here

If you launch the Configuration Editor you'll be presented with a dropdown list containing a tree of various settings:

enter image description here

If we select the /system.webServer/security/authentication/windowsAuthentication node we are presented with the full spectrum of settings that can be changed. Here we can see the setting we're interested in (useAppPoolCredentials):

enter image description here

You can choose whether to configure the values for the website in web.config or in applicationHost.config from the From: drop down list next to the config section tree drop down:

enter image description here

If a section has not been delegated as Read/Write in the web.config then you'll see the following:

enter image description here

We get an alert saying that this particular feature is locked, all of the settings are greyed out and disabled and there's a padlock indicating that child settings of this feature are also locked out.

Finally, not all settings can be delegated, for example site bindings, application pool, virtual directories.

Best Answer

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Iis – ASP.NET custom configuration section declaration breaks IIS Manager Configuration Editor

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