Use Local IIS Web server for debugging

Question

So I'm trying to setup a local test domain so I can have a subdomain using this article. My problem is that I can set up the sites fine in IIS and browse to files there. But when trying to setup visual studio to use the site for eg. In Project Url: http://localtest.me when I click Create VirtualDriectory I get the following error: Unable to create virtual directory. The URL 'http://localtest.me' is already mapped to a different folder 'C:\Websites\site'.

If I delete the site from IIS and allow visual studio to try create it, I get the following error: Unable to create the virtual directory. Could not find the server 'http://localtest.me' on the local machine. Creating a virtual directory is only supported on the local IIS server. But the site localtest.me poits to 127.0.0.1, which is my local machine right?

So how do I set up debugging in a scenario like this where I already created the site in IIS?

Answer 1

Instead of using the "Use Local IIS Web Server" setting in visual studio I always check "Use Custom Web Server" and point it at my local url. for your example localtest.me with the start url above set to localtest.me

If you still run into problems you can always get into debug mode but doing attach to process instead of F5 and selecting the IIS process.