Server application unavailable: installing IIS on .NET 2.0
I feel so dirty, but for a project I’m working on at the moment I have to use ASP.NET instead of PHP; “why?” is a question for another day. Anyway, I’ve installed IIS before so that wasn’t a big problem… or so I thought.
I already had the .NET 2.0 framework on my XP machine so went straight to installing IIS (5.1 comes with XP Pro). It installed easily enough and my hello world html file was served without any major problems (actually that’s not true, before I copied my own files across I tried to check the IIS default pages served ok only to discover, through more googling, that if I used IE instead of Firefox that annoying box asking me for a password would go away).
Now my ASP.NET issue. I got a Server application unavailable error message in big red letters when I tried to run any .aspx (ASP.NET) scripts and couldn’t figure out for the life of me why. The Event Viewer, where IIS errors are logged, gave little more by way of help: Failed to initialize the AppDomain:/LM/W3SVC/1/ROOT
Err… What?! I worked out that it wasn’t affecting html pages, just ASP ones - and only .aspx ones at that, suggesting it was .NET-related.
As it turns out the problem was that I had installed .NET before IIS. It’s easy enough to fix, but it took 20 solid minutes of googling to find the solution in a Microsoft community newsgroup (and then realise that I’d have found it already if I’d just read to the bottom of a 4 year old forum post I’d already found).
Anyway, what you need to do if you’re getting this “Server application unavailable” message is navigate to your .NET directory (something like C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727) in a command prompt and run the command aspnet_regiis.exe -i which will register ASP.NET with IIS. If that still doesn’t work, there’s always PHP.net 
July 18th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
Thank you so very much.
July 19th, 2007 at 2:04 am
Glad I can help!
August 21st, 2007 at 12:11 pm
YOU ARE THE MAN!!!! Thank you so very much!
August 21st, 2007 at 7:16 pm
OMG, I just spent 3 hours trying useless fix after useless fix trying to solve this problem. I’m putting you in my will.
August 29th, 2007 at 2:34 am
thank u, arigato, xie xie, terima kasih, matur nuwun
September 8th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Multumesc/ thank you
September 14th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Thanks…You are the MAN!!! Might I ask where you found this fix?
September 14th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Kevin, there are links in the article. Specifically: Microsoft newsgroups and asp.net forums
September 25th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
thank you very much…
September 26th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
Dude, thanks very much. I also searched everywhere, and could not get the line to run. thanks again.
October 17th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
You sir, are a star!
Quite why my client insists on this over PHP I don’t know and I don’t want to know but you have saved my skin!
November 23rd, 2007 at 8:06 am
Great. I’ve been searching to fix this problem. Working on a job where I have to use ASP instead of PHP. Even amidst the pain, your parting remark about PHP.net brought a smile.
Thanks.
November 26th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Very nice - worked a real treat for me!! Like the PHP.net remark too
“Server application unavailable†fixed by aspnet_regiis.exe -i
December 7th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
I’m working on this very same issue and things seem fine so far but one question….do I navigate and run the command from the most current ASP.NET 2.0.50727 directory or do I run the command under the directory for the ASP.NET version(1.1.4322 ) that the site was using before? I see after I run it under the 2.0 directory it obviously changes the asp.net version used by the site to 2.0…
December 7th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Jay,
I’m not an expert on Microsoft’s .NET platform, so please bare that in mind when reading the following.
The issue I described resolved an issue when you install IIS after the .NET framework. If you already had a site running that would suggest you had IIS first and then installed .NET, in which case the .NET framework should register itself with IIS during installation. Maybe your site needs to be run under .NET 1.1 (in which case you should be able to select the .NET version to use by going to the web site’s properties in IIS manager and looking under the ASP tab).
HTH.
December 28th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
I line up with the others, thanking you a lot for this tip. I had the exact same problem - and your tip simple did the job.
I am no .NET nor ASP man at all, so I could have spent days in the cyberjungle searching for knowledge if I hadn’t stumbled over your tip here pretty early - by pure coincidence.
You made my day - thanks again
January 8th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Yeah good one thanks.
On XP pro. Had everything running fine with asp.net 2.0 (never had v1.0 or 1.1) and after installing some updates the dreaded “server application unavailable” took over. Ponderous.
January 24th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
thanks geek!
February 19th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Thanks a lot.
Suman From India
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Transfered site from Server 2003 to XP Pro and over thought the problem. This simple little fix solved my issue. Thanks for publishing!
March 14th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
I am very grateful to find that the instruction I got solved my problem with a minimum delay.
thanks very much indeed.
March 20th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Hey, Bud !!!
You have justed saved us many fruitless hours. Thanks !!!
March 27th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Sir,
I have tried it but still i am getting problem.Actually when i am hitting “http://localhost” ,the page is calling oracle http server not microsoft’s.Please help me how can i solve this issue.
March 29th, 2008 at 1:49 am
thanks alot this is amazing i was looking for it for one week now thanks man for ur help
April 15th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I’m so glad!
I got fixed a problem that took 2 whole work days (8+8=16hours) to solve this problem, until i found this!!
Thank you very very much!
April 17th, 2008 at 2:49 am
Thanks - 2 wasted days. ready to call MS and use a support instance. You saved the day
April 18th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
[...] time ago I published a blog describing the use of a command line tool called aspnet_regiis.exe to overcome a “Server Application Unavailable” message when I was trying to get ASP.NET working on IIS 6 on Windows [...]
June 15th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Great thanks!
You help me fiex the problme.