C# – “Access Denied” when trying to connect to remote IIS server – C#

I receive an "Access Deined" COMException when I try to connect to a remote IIS 6 server from my C# application that is running under IIS 5.1.

Any ideas? I am experiencing all the same issues with the original questions.

Update – 4/1/09

I found this solution (http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/Start_Stop_IIS_Website.aspx) that consists of a window application connecting to an IIS server to start and stop web sites. I am able to run it on my workstation and connect to the IIS server.

Ugh….why can I run this stand alone application but not my ASP.NET application?

Original

I receive an "Access Denied" COMException when I try to connect to IIS from a remote machine using the DirectoryEntry.Exist method to check to see if the IIS server is valid.

string path = string.Format("IIS://{0}/W3SVC", server);

if(DirectoryEntry.Exist(path))
{
    //do something is valid....
}

I am a member of an active directory group that has been added to the Administrators groups to the IIS server I am trying to connect to.

Has anyone experience this issue and know how to resolve it?

UPDATE:

@Kev – It is an ASP.NET application. Also, I can connect without an username and password to the remote server through IIS6 Manager.

@Chris – I am trying to connect to the remote server to display the number of virtual directorys and determine the .NET framework version of each directory. See this SO question.

@dautzenb – My ASP.NET application is running under IIS 5.1 trying to connect to an IIS 6 server. I can see fault audits in the security log for my local ASPNET account on the remote server. When I try to debug the application, I am running under my domain account and still get the Access is denied.

UPDATE 2:

@Kev – I was able to establish to create a DirectoryEntry object using the following overload:

public DirectoryEntry
(    
    string path,    
    string username,    
    string password
)

But, all of the properties contain a " threw an exception of type 'System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException'" while I debug the app.

Also, the AuthenticationType property is set to Secure.

UPDATE 3:

The following two failure audit entries were in the remote IIS server's security event log every time I tried to establish a connection:

First event:

Event Category: Account Logon
Event ID: 680
Log attempt by: MICROSOFT_AUTHENTICATION_PACKAGE_V1_0
Logon account: ASPNET
Source Workstation:
Error Code: 0xC0000234

Second event:

Event Category: Logon/Logoff
Event ID: 529
Logon Failure:
Reason: Unknown user name or bad password
User Name: ASPNET
Domain: (MyDomain)
Logon Type: 3
Logon Process: NtLmSsp

Authentication Package: NTLM
Workstation Name: (MyWorkstationId)
Caller User Name: –
Caller Domain: –
Caller Logon ID: –
Caller Process ID: –
Transited Services: –
Source Network Address: 10.12.13.35
Source Port: 1708

Impersonation is set to true and the username and password are blank. It is using the ASPNET account on the remote IIS server.