ASP.NET MVC3 IIS can't get stylesheets to load

Question

I am having trouble getting my local II7 to load stylesheets when running a default 'File/New' MVC3 website. When I run the site using Visual Studio everything works great. I created an IIS7 website pointed to the root folder of the MVC website. The site comes up, but no stylesheets load. My app pool is set for .NET 4 and Integrated mode.

The same issue was described in this topic, but the fix didn't help me (I already have the 'serve static content' setting checked).

ASP.Net MVC & Local IIS Issue Loading Stylesheets

Any direction is appreciated!

Answer 1

This was solved by enabling Anonymous Authentication in IIS, then right-clicking that node and choosing Edit and choosing Application Pool Identity. Everything loads correctly now. With fiddler I noticed I was getting 401 errors on the stylesheets/js files, so I knew I had a security issue.

Answer 2

In your layout page have the style sheet like:

<link href="@Url.Content("~/folder/style.css")" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />

This should help by making it relative to your applications root the @Url(Content("~/ part.

Answer 3

Another thing to check is that Static Content is enabled in Windows Features - this catches me out every time. In Windows 7:

1. Open Control Panel
2. Select Programs > Programs and Features > Turn Windows features on or off
3. Expand Internet Information Services > World Wide Web Services > Common HTTP Features
4. Check "Static Content"
5. Click OK and wait before retrying.