Causes of "Connection with the server was reset" on project open?

Question

I've got an old VS2003 project that needs to be updated. Porting it forward to newer versions of .Net is way beyond the scope of the update. I fired up an old XP box and loaded up VS2003, but am unable to open the project.

I receive a "The Web server reported the following error when attempting to create or open the Web project location at the following URL: 'http://localhost/project'. 'The conneciton with the server was reset'.

OK, I'd pulled a copy out of the repository and tried to open it from the VS Projects folder. We'll try sharing the drive on the web site (looks like it was just dumped, rather than deployed, as the .sln is there). Same error trying to open from there. Makes sense, it's looking at localhost. OK, extract a copy into my wwwroot/project locally. Same error. Tried twiddling options for the local IIS, no go.

Now, I've done this before in the past and I remember that I had struggled a little getting old projects to open in VS, but I don't remember it being this bad. I'm out of ideas on this one. What am I missing here?

Answer 1

Are you missing a web app configured in IIS? you should have a virtual directory in IIS configured to point to the physical directory with your project. It should also be configured as a web app.

IN IIS management console right click on your virtual directory and select properties. In the properties dialog click the "Create" button located to the right of the (disabled) Application Name textbox. It will on the top of the Application Settings section of the dialog