You receive a "The page cannot be found" error message when you connect to a Web page in a virtual directory that is located in the root directory of a SharePoint Portal Server 2003 portal site or a Windows SharePoint Services Web site

Consider the following scenario. You create a new virtual directory that is located in the root directory of a Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 portal site or in the root directory of a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Web site. When you connect to a Web page in the new virtual directory, you receive the following error message:

This issue occurs if you do not configure an exclusion for the path of the new virtual directory. If you do not want SharePoint Portal Server 2003 or Windows SharePoint Services to handle requests for content in the virtual directory, you must exclude the path of the virtual directory.

To resolve this issue, configure an exclusion for the path of the new virtual directory. Follow these steps:

1. Start Windows SharePoint Services Central Administration.
2. Under Virtual Server Configuration on the Windows SharePoint Services Central Administration page, click Configure virtual server settings.
3. On the Virtual Server List page, click the virtual server that you want to configure. For example, click Default Web Site.
4. Under Virtual Server Management on the Virtual Server Settings page, click Define managed paths.
5. In the Add a New Path area of the Define Managed Paths page, type the path that you want to exclude from Windows SharePoint Services in the Path box. For example, type /NameOfVirtualDirectory.
6. Under Type, click Excluded path, and then click OK.
7. Verify that the path that you excluded is listed in the Excluded paths area of the Define Managed Paths page.

If you want to enable an ASP.NET application to run on a server that is running SharePoint Portal Server 2003 or Windows SharePoint Services, you must configure an exclusion for the application path on the virtual server. The exclusion tells SharePoint Portal Server 2003 or Windows SharePoint Services not to intercept the request to access the virtual server. Additionally, the exclusion tells SharePoint Portal Server 2003 or Windows SharePoint Services to let Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 handle the request. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information about a similar issue in Microsoft Office Project Server 2003, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information about how to manage paths, see the "Managing Paths" topic in the "Managing Sites" section of the "Administration" chapter of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Administrator's Guide. The Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Administrator's Guide (Administrator's Help.chm) is located in the Docs folder in the root folder of the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 CD.

Alternatively, see the "Managing Paths" topic in the "Administration" chapter of the Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Administrator's Guide. To obtain the Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Administrator's Guide, visit the following Microsoft Web site: