How can I tell IIS to compile specific folders independently of the rest of my Web site?

Question

Is there any way to get ASP.Net to compile different folders independently?

I have a Web app that uses some commercial software. The admin UI for this software is in a single folder -- there are about a 1,000 files in there, all told. (I've looked through it -- it ain't the greatest code ever written...)

This folder takes forever to build. If I build explicitly, it...slowly...compiles..subfolder...after...subfolder... If I do the site as a Web site project (as opposed to a Web application project -- so no explicit build), I have waited up to four or five minutes to refresh a page on a simple code change.

Sometimes it just gets stuck -- I'll be waiting and waiting and I'll just hit F5 for giggles, and -- bam! -- there it is. It apparently compiled sometime in the last 10 minutes but forgot to tell the browser about it...

How do I get this folder out of the general compilation? I never change anything in here, and I wish ASP.Net would just compile the friggin' thing to an assembly and leave it alone.

Possible?

Answer 1

Why don't you use aspnet_compiler to precompile the application? It does work on Web site projects as well as Web application projects and it can precompile almost everything in an ASP.NET app.

Answer 2

Maybe this is too obvious, but... Pull out that folder and create a separate website project for it with its own web.config.

You definitely can't have IIS treat the folders differently without that... it's the ASP.NET engine that handles the on-the-fly compilation, IIS knows nothing about it.