Error Configuring IIS Express

Question

_{Thursday, May 26, 2016 1:34 AM}

I've installed Visual Studio 2015 community on my laptop for personal use (I have experience with 2012 and 2014 in my workplace) and for some reason whenever I attempt to create a new Web site or a new web forms project, I get an error box saying "Configuring IIS Express failed with the following error: Filename: redirection.config Error: Cannot read configuration file."

I've made sure to properly set the permissions on my C:\Users\username]\Documents\IISExpress directory and the C:\Users\username]\Documents\Visual Studio 2015 directory. I also completely uninstalled and reinstalled Visual Studio twice. Other than that, I have no idea what to do!

It used to be much simpler to install and use the free Microsoft development tools, but now it seems that they want to squeeze you for every dollar.

EDIT: As it turns out, if I go in and select to Create a web forms project (not a website), the error stays the same, but it seems that Visual Studio does create a number of files in a project directory (About.aspx, Site.Master, Global.asax, etc etc), but when I go to open the project in Visual Studio, it gives me an error message that says: "Creation of the virtual directory http://localhost:65196 failed with the error: Filename: redirection.config Error: cannot read configuration file". 

All replies (1)

_{Friday, May 27, 2016 6:44 AM ✅Answered | 4 votes}

Dear gnboorse,

Welcome to the MSDN forum.

The error message “Configuring IIS Express failed with the following error:Filename: redirection.config Error: Cannot read configuration file.”, it looks like VS cannot read the configuration file, there may be caused the file is corrupted or the permission issue. Since you already set the enough permission on the related folders, please follow the steps as below to troubleshot:

Method 1:

1. Close Visual Studio.

2. Rename the %userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config directory.

3. Start Visual Studio again and create a new web site. The
   %userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config directory will be recreated
   with the default config files.

4. Copy the original applicationhost.config file over the autogenerated one.

Method 2: A similar method is re-name the applicationhost.config file, then right click on the web project and select Use IISExpress. You will get an error due to the renaming of the config file.

Change the name of the configuration file back to application.config. Ensure "Use Local IIS Web Server" is selected in the web project settings. Run the solution.

BTW, can you run the IIS express from the command prompt, and see if the same issue will occur or not.

Best regards,

Sara

We are trying to better understand customer views on social support experience, so your participation in this interview project would be greatly appreciated if you have time. Thanks for helping make community forums a great place.
Click HERE to participate the survey.