Help! My Code Won't Run!

Here in the ASP.NET forum, we get some posts from people wondering why their pages won't run, or how come their browser can't see the file, etc. etc.

Since many asp.net developers havn't experienced web development before, they might not be aware of some of the areas to troubleshoot when encountering problems.

Here's a list of things you can check if you have problems accessing your aspx pages:

1. Do you have IIS installed and running on your machine?

ASP.NET requires Internet Information Server to be
installed and running on your machine. ASP.NET is NOT
supported with Personal Web Server, which means that to
run ASP.NET you need either Windows2000, WinXPPro, or
NT4.0 (there is a hack way to get it to run on WinXPHE,
but its not recommended).

Also, make sure that you installed IIS BEFORE
you intall the .NET framework and VS.NET.


2. Ensure that your asp.net files are in a folder within
C:\InetPub\wwwroot
In Windows, all your web files that you want to have run
on your web server must be in this folder! You can put
them in subfolders if you wish, as long as they're with-
in the wwwroot directory.

3. The folder your asp.net files are in is set up as a
virtual directory within IIS.

A virtual directory can be thought of as similar to a
DNS: you pick a name for a folder, and instead of having
to reference the full C:\BLAH\default.aspx, you just
need to enter BLAH to get to the default page of that
directory. All asp.net applications (i.e. folders that
you have within your wwwroot directory) must be virtual
directories if you want the web server to run the pages
inside.

To set up a virtual directory, follow these steps:
1. Open IIS Manager (you can find it in Control Panel>
AdminTools>IIS)
2. Expand the tree until you can see your folder
(the tree is a listing of all the folders in wwwroot)
3. Once you have found the folder you want to convert,
right click on it and choose properties.
4. On the first panel of the dialog box that appears,
you'll see a button called CREATE, and a text box
beside it. The name you enter in the textbox will be
the name of your virtual directory (or your DNS if
you want to think of it that way). Click CREATE and
VOILA: a brand new virtual directory!

These are the basic trouble shooting items you should check first if you find your pages won't run.

If you have any other questions, comments, concerns, really good BBQ Chicken recipes, or whatever, feel free to email me at jfrost10@shaw.ca or icq me at 54706142

Jack