I am experiencing a paradox when I try to set the Project URL setting using Visual Studio 2008 Team Developer on an XP system using VB. The web site was created under the C:\inetpub\wwwroot\dnn500 folder. In the project settings/Web tab, When I set the "Use Local IIS Web server" option with the Project URL of http://localhost/dnn500 I am prompted with a mesage that says I must create a virtual directory to continue.

If I create the virtual directory, I find that I can no longer access the test web site. I see a .Net error complaining about the machine key.

I guess I am trying to understand how to make the test DNN instance run and still create this project to run on the local IIS server. Any help or insight would be appreciated.

The answer comes from a blog entry by Charles Nurse. It seems that in Visual Studio 2008, the settings of the project configuration Web tab are not the same as in VS 2005. Here is the configuration that worked for me.

• In the Start Action area, select the Start URL radio button and enter the URL to the test web site. From the example in the book, this would be http://localhost/dotnetnuke.
• In the Servers area, select the Use Local IIS Web server.
• Set the Project URL to the location of the project. Again, in the example this would be http://localhost/dotnetnuke/DesktopModules/GuestbookVB.
• Check the box labeled Override application root URL and enter the URL to the test web site. From the example, this is http://localhost/dotnetnuke.
• Save the project settings and you should be good to go.