I'm running IIS7 (Vista x86) virtual machine on Vista x64.
I want to set the server root on a physical disk outside the virtual machine but having problems.
I have created a shared folder (drive S) in the virtual machine which contains the server root.
(UAC=off on both the virtual machine and the host)

drive S is on the host machine.
To set a site root folder in IIS Manager I can browse to the shared folder "Network Drive S" which I can select but it just does not work.
Network connections are disabled on the virtual machine.

How to configure?

Not many people online here I guess?

There are many people on here. However, I doubt you'll find many with experience with II7 on 64 bit virtualized vista.

For a complete shot in the dark, I'll guess that the problem has something to do with the shared folder you are sharing into the virtual OS instance. Can the system see the drive the way you expect it to? How do shared drives works? Do they show up as mapped drives? Is so, then this might be the problem. Mapped drives are mapped in the user session, not at the OS level so IIS (running as a system service) can't see them. This might be part of the problem.

-Peter
compiledthoughts.com

Thanks for your reply Peter.

Under "Computer" in the virtual machine I see the folder under "Network Location 1"
Storage (\\S:\) (S)

In the IIS manager I can browse to "Network Drive (S) once I select a folder on drive S: the physical path just displays as S:\inetpub\wwwroot

I also tried like \\S:\inetpub\wwwroot but this does not work either.

I also tried to create a virtual hard disk linked to a physical hard disk which failed and returned an error.

"Virtual Server supports linking a virtual hard disk to a physical hard disk on the physical computer. This virtual hard disk can have multiple volumes. The virtual hard disk is created with the actual boot partition and partition map from the drive on the physical computer. All read and write requests are forwarded directly to the linked physical hard disk.
Linked disks are intended for converting a physical disk to a virtual hard disk. You cannot use a linked disk as a startup disk. Virtual machines will not be able to start with linked disks attached. If you turn on a virtual machine with a linked disk attached, the virtual machine will turn itself back off and write an event to the event log.
For more information about converting physical disks, see Copying a physical disk to a virtual hard disk.
Linking to a physical hard disk requires the following:
You must be an administrator or a member of the Administrators group to create or use a link to a physical hard disk.
The physical disk must be a basic disk; it cannot be a dynamic disk.
Caution
Unlike the other virtual hard disk types, which permit only the virtual machine to write to the specified virtual hard disk files, a virtual hard disk linked to a physical hard disk allows the guest operating system to directly modify the contents of the linked physical hard disk. This means that the guest operating system can overwrite the contents of the linked physical hard disk and can potentially corrupt the host operating system and other programs and data of the linked physical hard disk.
Important
You cannot write to a linked physical hard disk that has 100 MB or less of available storage space. If you attempt to do so, you will receive an error message. Correct the problem by moving or deleting files on the physical drive to create more storage space."

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l.../cc720356.aspx