ServerManager constructor crashes in test environment

Question

I am building a control application in MVC 4 and have encountered a really annoying problem. When I debug the project locally it works fine. However, when I deploy the project to the test server (Windows Server 2008 R2) the following line breaks:

ServerManager manager = new ServerManager("%windir%\\system32\\inetsrv\\config\\applicationhost.config");

Any help is very much appreciated!

Stack trace:

[ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: type]
   System.Activator.CreateInstance(Type type, Boolean nonPublic) +14156918
   System.Activator.CreateInstance(Type type) +11
   Microsoft.Web.Administration.ConfigurationManager..cctor() +96

[TypeInitializationException: The type initializer for 'Microsoft.Web.Administration.ConfigurationManager' threw an exception.]
   Microsoft.Web.Administration.ServerManager..ctor(String applicationHostConfigurationPath) +51
   ..HomeController.ApplicationPools() in ..HomeController.cs:26
   lambda_method(Closure , ControllerBase , Object[] ) +79
   System.Web.Mvc.ReflectedActionDescriptor.Execute(ControllerContext controllerContext, IDictionary 2 parameters) +261
   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeActionMethod(ControllerContext controllerContext, ActionDescriptor actionDescriptor, IDictionary`2 parameters) +39
   System.Web.Mvc.Async.<>c__DisplayClass42.<BeginInvokeSynchronousActionMethod>b__41() +34
   System.Web.Mvc.Async.<>c__DisplayClass39.<BeginInvokeActionMethodWithFilters>b__33() +124
   System.Web.Mvc.Async.<>c__DisplayClass4f.<InvokeActionMethodFilterAsynchronously>b__49() +837307
   System.Web.Mvc.Async.<>c__DisplayClass37.<BeginInvokeActionMethodWithFilters>b__36(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +15
   System.Web.Mvc.Async.<>c__DisplayClass2a.<BeginInvokeAction>b__20() +33
   System.Web.Mvc.Async.<>c__DisplayClass25.<BeginInvokeAction>b__22(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +837892
   System.Web.Mvc.<>c__DisplayClass1d.<BeginExecuteCore>b__18(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +28
   System.Web.Mvc.Async.<>c__DisplayClass4.<MakeVoidDelegate>b__3(IAsyncResult ar) +15
   System.Web.Mvc.Controller.EndExecuteCore(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +65
   System.Web.Mvc.Async.<>c__DisplayClass4.<MakeVoidDelegate>b__3(IAsyncResult ar) +15
   System.Web.Mvc.Controller.EndExecute(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +51
   System.Web.Mvc.<>c__DisplayClass8.<BeginProcessRequest>b__3(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +42
   System.Web.Mvc.Async.<>c__DisplayClass4.<MakeVoidDelegate>b__3(IAsyncResult ar) +15
   System.Web.Mvc.MvcHandler.EndProcessRequest(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +51
   System.Web.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +606
   System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +288

Answer 1

It turned out that the wrong version of Microsoft.Web.Administration was referenced. The correct version is 7.0.0.0. 7.9.0.0 is somehow meant for IIS Express which explains why it worked in my dev environment.