IIS7 + related answer ....
Ok - here's what I ended up doing. More or less, following the post by Simon Weaver in this thread/question.
But when it comes to the MSBuild settings .. most people here are using following setting: /p:MSDeployPublishMethod=RemoteAgent which is NOT RIGHT for IIS7. Using this setting means TFS tries to connect to the url: https://your-server-name/MSDEPLOYAGENTSERVICE But to access that url, the user to authenticate needs to be an Admin. Which is fraked. (And you need to have the Admin-override rule thingy ticked). This url is for IIS6 I think.
Here's the standard error message when you try to connect using RemoteAgent :-
Standard 401 Frak Off u suck RemoteAgent, error
C:\Program Files
(x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets
(3588): Web deployment task
failed.(Remote agent (URL
http://your-web-server/MSDEPLOYAGENTSERVICE)
could not be contacted. Make sure the
remote agent service is installed and
started on the target computer.) Make
sure the site name, user name, and
password are correct. If the issue is
not resolved, please contact your
local or server administrator. Error
details: Remote agent (URL
http://your-web-server/MSDEPLOYAGENTSERVICE)
could not be contacted. Make sure the
remote agent service is installed and
started on the target computer. An
unsupported response was received. The
response header 'MSDeploy.Response'
was 'V1' but 'v1' was expected. The
remote server returned an error: (401)
Unauthorized.
So .. you need to change your MSDeployPublishMethod to this:
/p:MSDeployPublishMethod=WMSVC
The WMSVC stands for Windows Manager Service. It's basically a newer wrapper over the Remote Agent but now allows us to correct provide a user name and password .. where the user does NOT have to be an admin! (joy!) So now you can correct set which users u want to have access to .. per WebSite ..
It also now tries to hit the the url: https://your-web-server:8172/MsDeploy.axd <-- which is EXACTLY what the Visual Studio 2010 Publish window does! (OMG -> PENNY DROPS!! BOOM!)
And here's my final MSBuild settings:
/p:DeployOnBuild=True
/p:DeployTarget=MSDeployPublish
/p:MSDeployPublishMethod=WMSVC
/p:MsDeployServiceUrl=your-server-name
/p:DeployIISAppPath=name-of-the-website-in-iis7
/p:username=AppianMedia\some-domain-user
/p:password=JonSkeet<3<3<3
/p:AllowUntrustedCertificate=True
Notice the username has the domain name in it? Ya need that, there. Also, in my picture, I've allowed our DOMAIN USERS access to the website for managament. As such, my new user account i added (TFSBuildService) has Membership to the Domain Users group ... so that's how it all works.
Now - if u've read all this, have a lolcat (cause they are SOOOOOOOO 2007)....
Best Answer
Restart visual studio.
I've had this one come up on a few occasions after having just successfully deployed a WebApp on a server running IIS 7.5. Obviously since a deployment/publishing was done successfully on the server just before this error came up, there was very little that could have gone wrong on the server setup/configuration (unless the previous successful deployment did something horribly wrong and removed some configuration parameters on the server).
After having rebooted the server, checked that Web Management service and Web Deployment service were running correctly, and verified from cUrl tool that a GET of the MsDeploy.axd was successful there was only one thing left to do. Restart Visual Studio. Magically post restart of VS publish started working again. All on its own. Magical stuff, this Web Deployment :)