My asp.net application needs the "IIS Metabase and IIS 6 Configuration Compatibility" - how to get rid of it?

Question

Some while ago I've upgraded an asp.net 1.1 application (which ran on IIS 5 and 6) to .net 3.5 and later to .net 4.0 (and IIS 7.5)

Still, when I want to open it in VS, I need to install the "IIS Metabase and IIS 6 Configuration Compatibility". It works after I install it, but..

How to get rid of this requirement?

Answer 1

When debugging ASP.NET projects using Windows 7's IIS7.5 web server, Visual Studio 2010 RTM requires the IIS6 Metabase and IIS6 Configuration Compatibility components.

However Visual Studio 2010 SP1 fixes this dependency and VS2010 now works natively with IIS7.5 without any need to use the IIS6 bits.

I also proved this by knocking out a test project in Visual Studio 2003 and then copying to two different IIS7.5 machines configured as:

• PC1: VS2010 RTM, no IIS6 Compatibility
• PC2: VS2010 SP1, no IIS6 Compatibility

Answer 2

Here's a long-winded explanation (in case you need it) but the short answer (which also appears there) is to run

aspnet_regiis -ga <WindowsUserAccount>

I believe that this only happens when you upgrade a machine or you are not an administrator of the machine when you install .Net/Visual Studio. I recently had to do this on a brand new laptop with Visual Studio 2010 installed by others before I had admin rights. So, the way to get rid of this requirement from your end is to do the install as an admin.