Visual Studio IIS Express hangs on launch, but IIS

Question

I run Visual studio 2015 as administrator, start a new project, ASP.NET application, Empty 4.5.2 and then just add a simple html page. When I try to launch using IIS Express, I just get waiting for local host. If I do this under IIS local it works fine.

I have this working correctly on my laptop and did a clean install of windows 10 on my desktop and then reinstalled VS2015, but still get same result. IIS express starts but the web page keeps waiting for local host

I've looked at a number of solutions but have been unable to resolve the problem. I'm a newbie to all of this so would appreciate step by step instructions on how to resolve.

It is a .Net Framework 4.5.2 application.

Answer 1

Sometimes Visual Studio just takes many minutes to load all the required symbols when debugging. Check the status bar of Visual Studio:

Once for some reason IIS Express worked if I changed the browser targeted in Visual Studio to Google Chrome. Simply restarting Visual Studio fixed this for me though.

Answer 2

I think IIS is disabled in your system. Please follow the below steps:

1. Go to Control Panel
2. Open Program and Features
3. On the left side, you will find 'Turn Windows features On or Off', click on it.
4. Check that IIS is checked with all the subfeatures. I am attaching a screenshot below for your reference.

5. Make sure all the checkboxes should be ticked.
6. Now restart your system.

I think this will solve your issue.

Answer 3

1. Right click on your web Project and click properties
2. Go to web tab on the right
3. In the server section, change local IIS to IIS Express

Hope this helps

Answer 4

I had same problem and all advices not working. But I run visual studio as administrator and all working now. So, go to shortcut of visual studio, properties, advance..., and check run as administrator.

Answer 5

Exit Visual studio and delete the (project).vs folder. Restart Visual studio. It should start working.

Answer 6

Look into applicationhost.config file under

YOUR_DOCUMENTS_PATH\IISExpress\config\

Localize defaultDocument setting and add your static html page full name (yourpage.html) or use one of the options available if you want to stick to the standards:

   <defaultDocument enabled="true">
        <files>
            <add value="Default.htm" />
            <add value="Default.asp" />
            <add value="index.htm" />
            <add value="index.html" />
            <add value="iisstart.htm" />
            <add value="default.aspx" />
        </files>
    </defaultDocument>