Umbraco - on a Fresh Win7 Installation - IIS 7.5

I completed a pull from GitHub for the Umbraco website which I had already set up on my Windows Vista desktop. Getting it running on Windows 7 (Home Premium) was another task.

First off, I was not sure if I had IIS (Internet Information Systems) installed on my laptop. There are two quick ways to check if you have IIS installed:

  1. Type in inetmgr in the command line. If the IIS Management console does not open, it means you need to install IIS. Remember this is a shortcut to start IIS Manager from the Run dialogue.
  2. You can also check by going to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools. If "Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager" does not appear here, it means no IIS as well.

Well, I found that I had not got IIS on my laptop. So it was time to get it installed. While installing I ran through some steps which caused some issues. I'm writing down the exact steps so that anyone else facing the same issues could resolve them

IIS Installation

You need to go to Control Panel -> Programs & Features -> Turn Windows Features on or off -> Internet Information Services (IIS). Ticking it makes it a filled box, and that is what I did (you will find out later why this was not a good idea). Hit on OK for the installation to complete.

Configuring the website

Once the IIS installation was complete, I ran through the same steps outlined in the section "Creating the website in IIS" to add umbraco.local website. You should also complete the steps given in "Accessing the website" on the same article before coming back here.

Accessing the website

The next step was accessing the URL umbraco.local. I was hoping to see the Umbraco login screen, but I was greeted with different error screens.

I have given below the errors I encountered and what I did to fix them. What I understood from most of the errors was that they were clearly stated. Every developer should take some time to read the exact message which sometimes lists the solution as well.

Error #1 & #2:
I first got a message stating that Handlers were disabled from being overridden in the application. When fixing that I got the same error for modules as well. Note that this was a false error (See error #4 for the exact cause).

Resolution to Error #1 & #2:
I modified the ApplicationHost.config file located in %windir%\\system32\\inetsrv\\config\\ApplicationHost.config with the following entries to reach error #3.

Error #3
The third error stated that I had not got a default document configured. Once again a false error, but you can add a default document via the IIS MMC control or by modifying the web.config of the application.

Resolution for Error #3
Added the following entry to reach the actual error.

Error #4

HTTP Error 404.3 - Not Found
The page you are requesting cannot be served because of the extension configuration. If the page is a script, add a handler. If the file should be downloaded, add a MIME map.
Error Code: 0x80070032

Resolution to error #4
Not obvious immediately, but by searching the error code, it was easy to figure out that this error was due to ASP.NET not being installed for IIS. You need to install ASP.Net from the control panel -> programs and features -> turn windows features on or off under IIS - this will add the correct handler mapping for asp.net content including the .aspx extension.

Error #5
My resolution to error #3, came up as error #5 stating that a "Duplicate entry for default document" was found since I had added it on web.config.

Resolution to Error #5
Removing the "defaultDocument" node from web.config resolved this issue and brought me to the next error.

Error #6

HTTP Error 500.21 - Internal Server Error
Handler "PageHandlerFactory-Integrated" has a bad module "ManagedPipelineHandler" in its module list
Error Code: 0x8007000d

Resolution to error #6
Once again Google came to the rescue as I searched for error code "0x8007000d and IIS". Several articles pointed out that this could happen if ASP.net is not correctly installed or registered. Running %windir%\\Microsoft.NET\\Framework\\v4.0.30319\\aspnet\_regiis.exe -i resolved the issue and brought me to the start page of the Umbraco website.

I tested out the Umbraco back office and everything is working as expected. Next on, I will install the MVC starter kit and move on from there...


This article was originally written on Google's Blogger platform and ported to Hashnode on 17 Sep 2022.