ASP.NET virtual directory _within_ VS2008

Question

I'm building an ASP.NET 3.5 web application. When I run the project (using Visual Studio's built-in server), it needs to be able to access a network share as a virtual directory. I can't seem to find any information about how to do this.

The network resource is very large, is updated frequently, and is used by other developers and in other projects projects--not just me and mine.

I understand that I can create an IIS virtual directory to the network path once the site is deployed, but that doesn't help me while I'm debugging.

Answer 1

It's now possible to have both virtual directories and sub-applications with newer versions of Visual Studio and IIS Express.

1. Open .vs\All\config\applicationhost.config in your text editor of choice, then navigate to the configuration/system.applicationHost/sites node.

2. Update the site element that corresponds to your parent application, like so:

Original:

<site name="Web" id="1">
    <!-- parent application -->
    <application path="/" applicationPool="Clr4IntegratedAppPool">
        <!-- application root -->
        <virtualDirectory path="/" physicalPath="C:\Src\Web" />
    </application>
    <bindings>
        <binding protocol="http" bindingInformation="*:5706:localhost" />
        <binding protocol="https" bindingInformation="*:44300:localhost" />
    </bindings>
</site>

Modified:

<site name="Web" id="1">
    <!-- parent application -->
    <application path="/" applicationPool="Clr4IntegratedAppPool">
        <!-- application root -->
        <virtualDirectory path="/" physicalPath="C:\Src\Web" />
        <!-- virtual directory -->
        <virtualDirectory path="/DocRoot" physicalPath="C:\Src\DocRoot" />
    </application>
    <!-- sub-application -->
    <application path="/FooBar" applicationPool="Clr4IntegratedAppPool">
        <!-- application root -->
        <virtualDirectory path="/" physicalPath="C:\Src\Foo Bar" />
        <!-- virtual directory; shared with parent app, so must be duplicated -->
        <virtualDirectory path="/DocRoot" physicalPath="C:\Src\DocRoot" />
    </application>
    <bindings>
        <binding protocol="http" bindingInformation="*:5706:localhost" />
        <binding protocol="https" bindingInformation="*:44300:localhost" />
    </bindings>
</site>

3. Save and restart IIS Express.