IIS 7.5 Express and virtual directories / applications

This one has been driving me CRAZY!!!!

IIS Express is an awesome tool for development.  Unfortunately, there are a couple of things that are not easily done that I need to do.  Number one is setting up a web service application as a virtual directory.  There isn’t an easy way to do this through the GUI tools.  Fortunately, I found this article on StackOverflow.com.  Basically, one just has to add a new application to the site with the Virtual Directory information.

Here’s my example:

<site name=”B2B(12)” id=”35″>

<application path=”/” applicationPool=”Clr2IntegratedAppPool”>

<virtualDirectory path=”/” physicalPath=”C:\Users\dscheidt\DevelopmentNew\MAIN\Source\Source\Web Sites\B2B” />

</application>

<application path=”/Services/ParamService” applicationPool=”Clr2IntegratedAppPool”>

<virtualDirectory path=”/” physicalPath=”C:\Users\dscheidt\DevelopmentNew\MAIN\Source\Source\Web Services\ParamService” />

</application>

<bindings>

<binding protocol=”http” bindingInformation=”*:15094:localhost” />

</bindings>

</site>

Once the second application is added, the only thing I had to do was add a <clear/> element to my connections list in my web service, and boom, everything worked great!