Error message when you try to run an ASP.NET 2.0 application on a Windows Server 2003-based computer: "Server unavailable"

When you try to run a Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 application on a Microsoft Windows Server 2003-based computer, you may receive the following error message: Additionally, an error message that resembles following is logged in the Application log:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: ASP.NET 2.0
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1088
Date: Date
Time: Time
User: N/A
Computer: ComputerName
Description: Failed to execute request because the App-Domain could not be created. Error: 0x80070005 Access is denied.

This issue may occur if you try to run the ASP.NET 2.0 application after you perform an in-place upgrade of the existing Windows Server 2003 installation by using a Windows Server 2003 CD that is integrated with Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2).

When you perform an in-place upgrade, the upgrade process resets the permissions on the Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) metabase and on other folders that are used by ASP.NET. Therefore, the custom service account will not have permissions to access these folders, and you receive the error message that is mentioned in the "Symptoms" section.

Note An in-place upgrade is also known as a "repair installation."

To resolve this issue, configure the custom service account by using the Aspnet_regiis.exe utility. At a command prompt, run the Aspnet_regiis.exe utility from ASP.NET 2.0 by using the -ga switch: Note In this command, AccountName represents the custom service account.

For example, you can run the following command to grant permissions to the NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE account: .

For more information about other related issues, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: