7

Why can I not open the applicationhost.config file on 64-bit Windows?

52d6c6af
  • 444
  • 1
    Are you receiving an error message? By default, to edit applicationHost.config, you need to be running your editor of choice (ie Notepad) as administrator since it is within System directory. – Chris Anton Sep 29 '11 at 20:59

2 Answers2

7

Paraphrased from icelava.net forums:

Under x64 Windows certain paths are designated as 64-bit paths, and a 32-bit process, like Visual Studio, is being redirected by Windows to the 32-bit path at C:\windows\SysWOW64 whenever C:\windows\system32 is referenced. The 32-bit process thinks it is looking at C:\windows\system32\inetsrv\config when it has been given C:\windows\SysWOW64\inetsrv\config; which indeed contain none of those configuration files we are after.

To solve (credit to Robert McMurray):

Open a 64-bit command prompt and execute the following commands:

cd /d "%systemdrive%\windows\syswow64\inetsrv"

move config configx86

MKLINK /d Config "%systemdrive%\windows\system32\inetsrv\Config"

It should report 

symbolic link created for Config <<===>> C:\windows\system32\inetsrv\Config

This effectively renames the 32-bit config directory so a symbolic link of that name can take its place to redirect back to the 64-bit path which we are really interested in.

Uwe Keim
  • 2,440
52d6c6af
  • 444
0

It has to do with redirections defined for WoW (Windows on Windows), aka to have older 32-bit apps still work inside 64-bit Windows.

Quoting from https://github.com/simonsteele/pn/issues/174

File system redirection. PN is 32-bit. Try \Windows\sysnative\inetsrv\config instead.

George Birbilis
  • 111