I have a web site running via IIS7 on Vista. The site is running on port 88, so http://localhost:88 should render the default /Home/Index view.
This works correctly, as do all other views.
However, one problem is resident. My script paths point to /Scripts/[FILE] and my CSS paths point to /Content/[FILE]. My assumption was that the /Content or /Scripts folder would always be at the root of the site as I have no intention to run this site in a virtual directory setting. Whenever the pages render, they have NO CSS or script! So everything looks wonky and the scripting obviously doesn't work, hence a lot of the views don't work either.
This is a very odd problem, one that I'm sure is a result of my lack of knowledge hosting things under IIS7. I'd appreciate any help anyone could offer. Thanks a lot!
I hope the continuation of this thread conveys a willingness to make sure this problem doesn't drive anyone off the cliff. There's a lot of documentation in various forums about solving this issue on Vista but I couldn't find any likewise articles for 2K8. As indicated in this forum post I was able to fix the issue on a Vista machine. Alas, a like execution failed to resolve the matter on 2K8.
I had verified that the StaticFileHandler had been included in the web.config as suggested in this blog post at apijunkie.com. Still, no luck.
Clarifying no luck, here - My server-side functionality was perfect. All MVC routes work like a champ. Just all CSS and JS rendering failed. When browser pointed directly at CSS or JS files resulting page was an ASP.NET 404 and not the traditional 404 error page.
So I went into the IIS7 Manager and into the Handler Mappings dialog. I added a new handler that specified the System.Web.StaticFileHandler type and gave it an extension of *.CSS. Then I repeated that for *.JS, *.PNG, and *.GIF files. When I refreshed the site in the browser, everything rendered perectly. The screen shots below demonstrate this process.
The Handler Mappings Window:
(source: windows.net)
Adding a new Managed Handler
(source: windows.net)
This resolved the problem, and now I have a perfectly functioning MVC app hosted in W2K. Time for a Guinness.
From Control Panel, go to Turn Windows features on or off, then check Static Content in sub-sub-sub node of IIS.
The problem was in the way I created the application. According to the forum thread located here, I needed to select the "Classic .NET AppPool" to fix my problem. Gotta love progress!
Turns out this isn't a fix on Windows 2008. Should anyone have any ideas on how to resolve this matter it'd be appreciated.
Detailed problem:
Windows 2K8 Server, IIS7. Have pipeline turned on and static file support installed. MVC works, but CSS doesn't render.
What the heck?
The problem not lies precisely in the authorization/authentication but in the modules that now manages the IIS.
Inside system.webServer you should have runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests set to false so you can display all images/css without problems with authentication.
In ASP.NET websites, the value of runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests previously had to be set to true to support routing. However, once IIS 7 has been updated with a Service Pack, the value of runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests can be set to false or omitted when working with ASP.NET routing.
Ref. http://www.iis.net/configreference/system.webserver/modules
P.S. Don't forget to add the following lines to the AppSettings section of my web.config file:
< add key="autoFormsAuthentication" value="false" />
< add key="enableSimpleMembership" value="false"/>