Web site configuration

Website:

The Web Site project is compiled on the fly. You end up with a lot more DLL files, which can be a pain. It also gives problems when you have pages or controls in one directory that need to reference pages and controls in another directory since the other directory may not be compiled into the code yet. Another problem can be in publishing.

If Visual Studio isn't told to re-use the same names constantly, it will come up with new names for the DLL files generated by pages all the time. That can lead to having several close copies of DLL files containing the same class name, which will generate plenty of errors. The Web Site project was introduced with Visual Studio 2005, but it has turned out not to be popular.

Web Application:

The Web Application Project was created as an add-in and now exists as part of SP 1 for Visual Studio 2005. The main differences are the Web Application Project was designed to work similarly to the Web projects that shipped with Visual Studio 2003. It will compile the application into a single DLL file at build time. To update the project, it must be recompiled and the DLL file published for changes to occur.

Another nice feature of the Web Application project is it's much easier to exclude files from the project view. In the Web Site project, each file that you exclude is renamed with an excluded keyword in the filename. In the Web Application Project, the project just keeps track of which files to include/exclude from the project view without renaming them, making things much tidier.

Reference

The article ASP.NET 2.0 - Web Site vs Web Application project also gives reasons on why to use one and not the other. Here is an excerpt of it:

• You need to migrate large Visual Studio .NET 2003 applications to VS 2005? use the Web Application project.
• You want to open and edit any directory as a Web project without creating a project file? use Web Site project.
• You need to add pre-build and post-build steps during compilation? use Web Application project.
• You need to build a Web application using multiple Web projects? use the Web Application project.
• You want to generate one assembly for each page? use the Web Site project.
• You prefer dynamic compilation and working on pages without building entire site on each page view? use Web Site project.
• You prefer single-page code model to code-behind model? use Web Site project.

Web Application Projects versus Web Site Projects (MSDN) explains the differences between the web site and web application projects. Also, it discusses the configuration to be made in Visual Studio.

There are multiple possible issues:

1. How Is the Remote Access to a Local Account Configured.

Is the system in a domain or workgroup? If in a workgroup, unless you change it, all remote access by administrator accounts is disabled (they are treated as guests).

You can change this in local security policy:

• Run secpol.msc from Start | Run
• Go to Local Policies | Security Options
• Select setting "Network access: Sharing and security model for local accounts"
• Ensure this is set to "Classic: Local users authenticate as themselves."

(The explanation tab gives more details.)

While in secpol also check that you are auditting account logins.

2. ISS Authentication Settings

What are the authentication settings for the virtual directory? Is anonymous access enabled? Is Windows Authentication enabled?

If you are auditting account login events, check the security event log to see the logins that should have happened if the user was authenticated.

3. What are the permissions on the file system

Does the remote user (for Windows Authentication) or the Worker Process identity (for anonymous) have read access to the file system objects?

Use Process Monitor to see if the files are being accessed (or attempts made to access them), this should help see if it is IIS generating the unauthorized error internally or use to an access denied from the file system.

4. Go back to the error

HTTP/1.1 401 Access denied Learn about IIS status codes Path:W3SVC/1670937635/ROOT AuthType:Anonymous

This seems to be saying that the client is not being authorised as their Windows account. This seems to be the area to focus on. Do you get the same if the client browser is running on the server box, how about a different box, how about a different browser? Is IE configured for the applicable zone to allow Windows authentication?