Config Error This configuration section cannot be used at this path

Question

I ve encountered an error deploying a site to a server   When trying to load the home page  or access authentication on the new site in IIS  I get the error      Config Error  This configuration section cannot be used at this path    This happens when the section is locked at a parent level  Locking is   either by default  overrideModeDefault  Deny    or set explicitly by a   location tag with overrideMode  Deny  or the legacy   allowOverride  false     More detail can be found here  in Scenario 7 matches my hex error code   The solution given on the linked site above is to set Allow for overrideModeDefault in the section mentioned in my error  in the applicationHost config file   In my case   under Security in system webServer   But if I look at the applicationHost config on my local computer  where the site is properly deployed already  that section is set to Deny   If this solution is correct  how is my local instance running just fine with the same web config   According to my applicationHost config  that section should be locked  but it s not   I d prefer to not change the applicationHost config file  because there are many other sites running on that server   Is there another solution

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In my case  I got this error because I was operating on the wrong configuration file   I was doing this   Configuration config   serverManager GetWebConfiguration websiteName   ConfigurationSection serverRuntimeSection   config GetSection  system webServer serverRuntime    serverRuntimeSection  alternateHostName     hostname    instead of the correct code   Configuration config   serverManager GetApplicationHostConfiguration    ConfigurationSection serverRuntimeSection   configApp GetSection  system webServer serverRuntime   websiteName   serverRuntimeSection  alternateHostName     hostname    in other words  I was trying to operate on the website s web config instead of the global file C  Windows System32 inetsrv config applicationHost config  which has a section  or can have a section  for the website   The setting I was trying to change exists only in the applicationHost config file

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I had an issue where I was putting in the override    Allow  values  mentioned here already       but on a x64 bit system       my 32 notepad   was phantom saving them   Switching to Notepad  which is a 64bit application on a x64 bit O S  allowed me to save the settings   See    http   dpotter net technical 2009 11 editing-applicationhostconfig-on-64-bit-windows   The relevant text   One of the problems I   m running down required that I view and possibly edit applicationHost config   This file is located at  SystemRoot  System32 inetsrv config   Seems simple enough   I was able to find it from the command line easily  but when I went to load it in my favorite editor  Notepad    I got a file not found error   Turns out that the System32 folder is redirected for 32-bit applications to SysWOW64   There appears to be no way to view the System32 folder using a 32-bit app   Go figure  Fortunately  64-bit versions of Windows ship with a 64-bit version of Notepad   As much as I dislike it  at least it works

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I had the same issue     Resolved it by enabling Application Server feature  Restarted iis after that

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For Windows Server 2012 and IIS 8  the procedure is similar   The Web Server  IIS  and Application Server should be installed  and you should also have the optional Web Server  IIS  Support under Application Server

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Before reinstalling iis and possibly all of your sites  go to  C  inetpub history There should be number of folders  example  CFGHISTORY 0000000029   Each time a root config file is modified  and entry is made in there   by default backups of the last 10 modifications are saved  Look for a backup folder that has the right date and time for it  Click on it and see if there is a file called  applicationhost config Compare this to your current applicationhost config file  or replace your current version with it  make a backup first      I recently had my localhost iis file modified by a windows 2004 update package  which locked a few features at the root  such as handlers   which prevented localhost sites from working - hence my search  If you open the file in Visual Code  you can see each area that is locked with a overrideModeDefault  quot Deny quot  This might get you a step closer  and also a way to recover if this file ever gets corrupted

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For Windows Server 2008 and IIS 7  the procedure is similar   please refer to this  http   msdn microsoft com en-us library vstudio bb763178 v vs 100  aspx  in add role service  u will see  Application Development Features   Check  enable  the features  I checked all

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This worked for me Also in IIS 8 you can solve this problem by changing the server to IIS Express  Goto debug- Properties  In the Web select the server as IIS Express from the dropdown and then rebuild the solution

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To fix this open up the IIS Express applicationhost config  This file is stored at C  Users your user name  Documents IISExpress config applicationhost config  Update for VS2015   config file location is   solutionDir  vs config applicationhost config  Look for the following lines   lt section name  windowsAuthentication  overrideModeDefault  Deny    gt   lt section name  anonymousAuthentication  overrideModeDefault  Deny    gt   lt add name  WindowsAuthenticationModule  lockItem  true    gt   lt add name  AnonymousAuthenticationModule  lockItem  true    gt    Change those lines to   lt section name  windowsAuthentication  overrideModeDefault  Allow    gt   lt section name  anonymousAuthentication  overrideModeDefault  Allow    gt   lt add name  WindowsAuthenticationModule  lockItem  false    gt   lt add name  AnonymousAuthenticationModule  lockItem  false    gt    Save it and refresh Asp net Page

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Adding following key in registry solved my issue   HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SYSTEM CurrentControlSet services ASP NET 64 Performance   When I tried these steps I kept getting error    Search for  Turn windows features on or off  Check  Internet Information Services  Check  World Wide Web Services  Check  Application Development Features  Enable all items under this   Then i looked at event viewer and saw this error Unable to install counter strings because the SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Services ASP NET 64 Performance key could not be opened or accessed  The first DWORD in the Data section contains the Win32 error code   To fix the issue i manually created following entry in registry   HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SYSTEM CurrentControlSet services ASP NET 64 Performance   and followed these steps    Search for  Turn windows features on or off  Check  Internet Information Services  Check  World Wide Web Services  Check  Application Development Features  Enable all items under this

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On Windows Server 2012 with IIS 8 I have solved this by enabling ASP NET 4 5 feature     and then following ken s answer

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I needed to change the SSL settings on a subfolder when i got this nice message  In my case following action helped me out   Opened C  Windows System32 inetsrv config applicationHost config  And changed the value from overrideModeDefault  Deny  to  Allow    lt sectionGroup name  system webServer  gt            lt sectionGroup name  security  gt           lt section name  access  overrideModeDefault  Allow    gt       lt  sectionGroup gt

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The error says that the configuration section is locked at the parent level  So it will not be directly 1 config file which will resolve the issue  we need to go through the hierarchy of the config files to see the inheritance  Check the below link to go through the File hierarchy and inheritance in IIS  https   msdn microsoft com en-us library ms178685 aspx  So you need to check for the app config settings in the below order   ApplicationHost config in C windows system32 inetsrv config  Change the overrideModeDefault attribute to be Allow  ApplicationName config or web config in the applications directory  Web config in the root directory  Web config in the specific website  My issue was found at this place   Web config of the root web  server s configuration  machine config of the machine  Root s web config and machine config can be found at - systemroot MicrosoftNET Framework versionNumber CONFIG Machine config    Go carefully through all these configs in the order of 1 to 6 and you should find it

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Seems that with IIS Express and VS 2015  there s a copy of the applicationHost config file at   solutionDir  vs config applicationhost config so you ll need to make changes there   See this link  http   digitaldrummerj me iis-express-windows-authentication   Make sure these lines are changed per below    lt section name  windowsAuthentication  overrideModeDefault  Allow    gt   lt section name  anonymousAuthentication  overrideModeDefault  Allow    gt   lt add name  WindowsAuthenticationModule  lockItem  false    gt   lt add name  AnonymousAuthenticationModule  lockItem  false    gt

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To make a change at Application Level  Web Config    Please remove the Trust Level from the web config    Actually I was getting this error when I was trying to host my Website on the Hosting Server where I don t have control on their Server  Removing the above line from my Application web config solved my issue

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In my case it was that on server was not enabled  HTTP Activation  under  NET Framework Features  So for Windows Server 2012 the solution which worked for me was   Server Manager -  Add roles and features -  Features -  make sure that under  NET Framework  of version you want to use is checked  HTTP Activation

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I had the same problem  Don t remember where I found it on the web  but here is what I did   Click  quot Start button quot  in the search box  enter  quot Turn windows features on or off quot  in the features window  Click   quot Internet Information Services quot  Click   quot World Wide Web Services quot  Click   quot Application Development Features quot  Check  enable  the features  I checked all but CGI   btw  I m using Windows 7  Many comments over the years have certified this works all the way up to Windows 10 and Server 2019  as well

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I ran these two commands from an elevated command prompt    windir  system32 inetsrv appcmd unlock config  section anonymousAuthentication   windir  system32 inetsrv appcmd unlock config  section windowsAuthentication

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I noticed one answer that was similar  but in my case I used the IIS Configured Editor to find the section I wanted to  unlock        Then I copied the path and used it in my automation to unlock it prior to changing the sections I wanted to edit         env windir  system32 inetsrv appcmd  unlock config -section system webServer security authentication windowsAuthentication       env windir  system32 inetsrv appcmd  unlock config -section system webServer security authentication anonymousAuthentication

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You need to unlock handlers  This can be done using following cmd command    windir  system32 inetsrv appcmd exe unlock config -section system webServer handlers   Maybe another info for people that are getting this error on IIS 8  in my case was on Microsoft Server 2012 platform  I had spend couple of hours battling with other errors that bubbled up after executing appcmd  In the end I was able to fix it by removing Web Server Role and installing it again

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In my case  it was something else   When I loaded the solution in a new version of Visual Studio  VS apparently created a new project-specific applicationhost config file   MySolutionDir  vs config applicationhost config  It started using the settings from the new config  instead of my already customized global IIS Express settings    Users  USER  Documents IISExpress config applicationhost config   In my case this was the setting that needed to be set  Of course it could be something else for you    lt section name  ipSecurity  overrideModeDefault  Allow    gt

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You could also use the IIS Manager to edit those settings  Care of this Learn IIS article  Using the Feature Delegation from the root of IIS   You can then control each of machine-level read write permissions  which will otherwise give you the overrideMode  quot Deny quot  errors

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This Did the trick for me  for IIS 8 Windows server 2012 R2   Go to  Turn on Features   Then go to all default setting   Next  Next  Next etc     Then  select as shown below    Then reset IIS  optional  but do it safer side      This is an additional solution as its a generic problem everyone have different of problem and thus different solution  Cheers

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Browse to    C  Windows System32 inetsrv config     you will need administrator rights here  Open applicationHost config  Note  In IISExpress and Visual Studio 2015 the applicationHost config is stored in   solutionDir  vs config applicationhost config   Find the section that showed up in the    config source    part of the error message page   For me this has typically been    modules    or    handlers     Change the overrideModeDefault attribute to be Allow  So the whole line now looks like    lt section name  modules  allowDefinition  MachineToApplication  overrideModeDefault  Allow    gt    After saving the file  the page loaded up fine in my browser   Warning  Editing applicationHost config on 64-bit Windows

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Received this same issue after installing IIS 7 on Vista Home Premium   To correct error I changed the following values located in the applicationHost config file located in Windows system32 inetsrv   Change all of the following values located in section  --     lt div mce keep  true  gt  lt section name  handlers  overrideModeDefault  Deny    gt  change this value from  Deny  to  Allow  lt  div gt   lt div mce keep  true  gt  lt section name  modules  allowDefinition  MachineToApplication  overrideModeDefault  Deny    gt  change this value from  Deny  to  Allow  lt  div gt

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1  Open  Turn windows features on or off  by  WinKey  R     optionalfeatures     OK     Enable those features under  Application Development Features      Tested on Win 10 - But probably will work on other windows versions as well

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Can You try this   Go to application path where you re getting deny error  right click   Properties- Security tab  In that  change the permissions and check the checkbox read and write  Then it will work without any error hopefully

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In our case on IIS 8 we found the error was produced when attempting to view Authentication  for a site  when    The server Feature Delegation marked as  Authentication - Windows     Read Only  The site had a web config that explicitly referenced windows authentication  e g      Marking the site Feature Delegation  Authentication - Windows     Read Write   the error went away   It appears that  with the feature marked  Read Only   the web config is not allowed to reference it at all even to disable it  as this apparently constitutes a write

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The Powershell way of enabling the features  Windows Server 2012    - trim as needed   Install-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-Core Install-WindowsFeature Web-Server -IncludeAllSubFeature Install-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-Features -IncludeAllSubFeature Install-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-45-ASPNET -IncludeAllSubFeature Install-WindowsFeature Application-Server -IncludeAllSubFeature Install-WindowsFeature MSMQ -IncludeAllSubFeature Install-WindowsFeature WAS -IncludeAllSubFeature

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The best option is to Change Application Settings from the Custom Site Delegation Open IIS and from the root select Feature Delegation and then select Application Settings and from the right sidebar select Read Write

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The following worked for me   Go to project properties   Web tab   Set to Local IIS and set specific page   I have Windows 7 and Visual Studio 2013

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In my case I was getting this error when attempting to update the authentication settings in IIS also in addition to browsing   I was able to remove this error by removing the authentication setting from the web config itself   Removing a problematic configuration section may be less invasive and preferable in some cases than changing the server roles and features too much   Section Removed        lt security gt           lt authentication gt               lt windowsAuthentication enabled  true    gt           lt  authentication gt       lt  security gt

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i solved this issue   go to cmd and execute  aspnet regiis -i  hope it helpful to someone

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As per my answer to this similar issue   Try unlocking the relevant IIS configuration settings at server level  as follows    Open IIS Manager Select the server in the Connections pane Open Configuration Editor in the main pane In the Sections drop down  select the section to unlock  e g  system webServer   defaultPath Click Unlock Attribute in the right pane Repeat for any other settings which you need to unlock Restart IIS  optional  - Select the server in the Conncetions pane  click Restart in the Actions pane

[iis] Config Error: This configuration section cannot be used at this path

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