It had been suggested to me that IIS is/was corrupted. But, after experiencing this message on a new computer with a fresh Win 7 64-bit, IIS install and one new web site created, I have come to the conclusion that the message itself is a bug and that it is benign. That is, the application and website will run as expected. This opinion has not been contradicted on the MS IIS forum since I posted this several months ago.
See this thread: http://forums.iis.net/p/1182820/2000936.aspx
