IIS error when attempting to start WebMatrix

Question

When I attempt to start WebMatrix, I get an alert saying "IIS Express could not be initialized. Please make sure that it is installed and configured correctly."

I've uninstalled and reinstalled both IIS Express and WebMatrix, with no change in this behavior. The advice I've been able to find on the net has been to assume ownership of the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Microsoft.IIS.VersionManager registry key and replace all child object permissions with the permissions from that registry key. This didn't seem to help.

Looking in Event Viewer, I can see .net runtime exceptions whenever iisexpresstray.exe or webmatrix.exe try to launch:

• System

  • Provider [ Name] .NET Runtime
  • EventID 1026 [ Qualifiers] 0 Level 2 Task 0 Keywords 0x80000000000000
  • TimeCreated [ SystemTime] 2012-09-29T21:28:02.000000000Z EventRecordID 162768 Channel Application Security

• EventData Application: iisexpresstray.exe Framework Version: v4.0.30319 Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception. Exception Info: System.ArgumentNullException >Stack: at System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(System.Object) at Microsoft.Web.VersionManager.IisExpressVersion.Dispose(Boolean) at Microsoft.Web.VersionManager.IisVersion.Finalize()

I would greatly appreciate any help in diagnosing and fixing this issue. WebMatrix is going to be almost essential to a project I have coming up soon. Thanks!

Answer 1

For some reason, installing IIS 8 Express fixed the problem.