You get this error when first running your application:

HTTP Error 500 — Page cannot be displayed…

This error occurs your web server is not configured appropriately to run Microsoft .NET Framework applications.  There are several reasons your web server may not be configured properly.  Please review the following sections.

Microsoft IIS web server is not installed - Check to see if you have Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) installed

Microsoft IIS is installed, but not running - start the World Wide Web Publishing Service

Web Service Extensions are Disabled - If you are using Windows 2003, you must enable web service extensions

Create a test.aspx file containing one line in your application folder (e.g., MyApp):

<% Response.Write(“Testing”) %>

Access this test page through your browser to see if ASPX is correctly installed.  To run this from the browser, enter:

http://localhost/MyApp/test.aspx

If you see the word “Testing”, then everything is set up properly.  On the other hand, you might see the actual code from the file:

<% Response.Write(“Testing”) %>

In this case, your Microsoft IIS server is not configured to run ASPX properly.  If this is the case, check if the Microsoft .NET Framework is installed and then re-register ASP.NET.

The ASPNET user is not configured properly

Check to make sure the ASPNET account has permissions to the folder containing your application.  Your ASPNET user needs full permissions in order for your application to run properly.