applicationhost.config file path in IIS 7, 7.5, 8, 8.5 and IIS 10?

Question

Anyone please explain me the applicationhost.config file location in the different mentioned IIS versions. Please mention the exact locations in each iis version. Apt answers will be appreciated.

Solution

For the "big" IIS versions since IIS 7, the location is always the same:

 %windir%\System32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config

For IIS Express there is one per user, the default location is:

%USERPROFILE%\Documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config

again it's the same for all versions.

You can run multiple instances of IIS Express per user, you would need to specify the location of the applicationhost.config as the command line parameter /config for iisexpress.exe

Comments

[Lex Li]

The part for IIS Express is not 100% correct. IIS Express command line interface allows a config file to be loaded from anywhere. The default one is primarily used by Visual Studio.

[harishr]

@LexLi The default one is primarily used by Visual Studio where is that located??

[Peter Hahndorf]

@hr-tis - The default one for IIS Express is the second location mentioned in the answer.

[savehansson]

If you start a web app directly from Visual Studio (2017) the file used is: [SOLUTION ROOT FOLDER]\.vs\config\applicationhost.config Tip: If you right-click the IIS Express icon in taskbar and select Show All Applications, you can click on each site to see the paths used.

[Elliott Beach]

update on SaveHansson's comment: In Visual Studio 2019, [SOLUTION ROOT FOLDER]\.vs\config\[SOLUTION NAME]\applicationhost.config] (the SOLUTION NAME part is new).

[EzaBlade]

Mine was at, [SOLUTION ROOT FOLDER]\.vs[SOLUTION NAME]\config\applicationhost.config (slightly different order)