Local Host IISStart.htm gives "Internet Explorer Cannot Display the Webpage"

Introduction

Following the release of a new intranet site onto our Windows 2008 PROD Server on IIS 7, we were unable to browse the sites locally. Any attempt to browse the new sites or the Default Web Site gave the "Intranet Explorer Cannot Display the WebPage" message.

Background

The sites were installed under the Default Web Site in their own Application pool running on .NET framework v4.0. We had no such issues on our DEV and UAT servers so this took ages to work out.

Solution

Having tried a number of other Google searches and recommendations and comparing the properties of the UAT server and the PROD server, I noticed that the Default Web Site (running under the DefaultAppPool) was running under .NET Framework v2....

When I changed this to run under v4... then everything started to work like a dream.

Points of Interest

I guess that sites which fall under the Default Web site must not use a later version of the .NET framework.

History

• 28^th May, 2014: Initial version