Seamless deployment in ASP.NET (IIS kills worker process before new worker process is ready)

Question

I am trying to deploy a .NET Web application to IIS (7.5) without any hassle for the users. I have made sure that Disable Overlapped Recycle is False b

Answer 1

When deploying ASP.Net applications I create a new folder on the server and change the home directory of the website within IIS. This provides zero downtime deployment and a quick rollback position in case of unforeseen issues. On a future update I scrap the old version and repeat the process so that there is always a single rollback position.

Update - Shutdown time limit

Details configuring the shutdown time limit for workers is detailed at http://www.iis.net/ConfigReference/system.applicationHost/applicationPools/add/processModel. The default is 1 min 30 secs. Look for the shutdownTimeLimit section in the linked page.

Update - More information

Similar question with a great answer

The gist of this is that the due to overwritting the existing files the copying mechanism takes an exclusive lock on the files and that it is not possible to have seemless deployment without use of app_offline.htm or a mechanism such as suggested above. Take a read of the linked answer as it goes into much more depth.