Setting Up The Development Web Server So that the site is the root

One of the pains of Visual Studio .NET 2005 (pre-SP1) is that the development server, which is a great idea, starts up any web site in a folder instead of as the root of the site. As a result you can fully qualify your pathing.

Here's the solution to allow you to set of the development server with the right pathing.

Microsoft is very aware of this problem and one of their blogers has posted a work around. It's not pretty, but it does work, and it makes your life much much easier.

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2005/11/21/431138.aspx

Also, here's an interesting addin that will allow you to create a web server out of any path simply by right clicking on it in explorer:

http://weblogs.asp.net/rmclaws/archive/2005/10/26/428600.aspx

If you have Service Pack 1 for Visual Studio .NET 2005 it is possible to set the development server to open the website as root.

In the Solution Explorer Panel select the root node for the website, switch to the Properties panel, edit the property for Virtual path to equal /.

If you set the property Use dynamic ports to False the development server will always launch using the port specified by the property Port number.