Accessing the ASP.NET Web Configuration Tool in Visual Studio 2013

Visual Studio 2013 Preview has been release, hide few features which was present initially in previous versions. One of them is "Asp.Net Configuration Manager" which is no longer in Visual Studio 2013 Preview. This happened due to the removal of Cassini or Visual Studio Development Server from the product. Many peoples are still want to use the tool. I found these instruction in MSDN blog but before of use make sure that this will work only for sites running on the .Net Framework 4.0 and above. Follow these steps;

1. Open the Command Prompt (not as administrator)

2. Navigate to the folder where IIS Express is installed on your machine.

3. In the command line spin up a IISExpress site with the following prompt: “iisexpress.exe /path: 

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\ASP.NETWebAdminFiles /vpath:”/ASP.NETWebAdminFiles” /port:[port] /clr: 4.0 /ntlm” using the following values for the [param]:

   NOTE: [port] – any port you have free in IISExpress like 8082

4. This should launch an IISExpress instance of the Configuration Manager Site

5. Open your browser

6. In the URL enter the following 

“http://localhost:8082/asp.netwebadminfiles/default.aspx?applicationPhysicalPath=[appPath]&applicationUrl=/” 

Substituting the [appPath] with the absolute path to the Visual Studio Project folder with the solution file in it.

Congratulations, you now have your ASP.net Web Site Administration Tool running as before. Stay tune:)