MVC + IIS7 = CSS Issue

Question

I have a web site running via IIS7 on Vista. The site is running on port 88, so http://localhost:88 should render the default /Home/Index view.

This works correctly, as do all other views.

However, one problem is resident. My script paths point to /Scripts/[FILE] and my CSS paths point to /Content/[FILE]. My assumption was that the /Content or /Scripts folder would always be at the root of the site as I have no intention to run this site in a virtual directory setting. Whenever the pages render, they have NO CSS or script! So everything looks wonky and the scripting obviously doesn't work, hence a lot of the views don't work either.

This is a very odd problem, one that I'm sure is a result of my lack of knowledge hosting things under IIS7. I'd appreciate any help anyone could offer. Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

I hope the continuation of this thread conveys a willingness to make sure this problem doesn't drive anyone off the cliff. There's a lot of documentation in various forums about solving this issue on Vista but I couldn't find any likewise articles for 2K8. As indicated in this forum post I was able to fix the issue on a Vista machine. Alas, a like execution failed to resolve the matter on 2K8.

I had verified that the StaticFileHandler had been included in the web.config as suggested in this blog post at apijunkie.com. Still, no luck.

Clarifying no luck, here - My server-side functionality was perfect. All MVC routes work like a champ. Just all CSS and JS rendering failed. When browser pointed directly at CSS or JS files resulting page was an ASP.NET 404 and not the traditional 404 error page.

So I went into the IIS7 Manager and into the Handler Mappings dialog. I added a new handler that specified the System.Web.StaticFileHandler type and gave it an extension of *.CSS. Then I repeated that for *.JS, *.PNG, and *.GIF files. When I refreshed the site in the browser, everything rendered perectly. The screen shots below demonstrate this process.

The Handler Mappings Window:

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Adding a new Managed Handler

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This resolved the problem, and now I have a perfectly functioning MVC app hosted in W2K. Time for a Guinness.

Answer 2

From Control Panel, go to Turn Windows features on or off, then check Static Content in sub-sub-sub node of IIS.