Applicationhost.config not showing changes

Question

We have a webserver hosted in Microsoft Azure. It\'s a Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter edition, 64 bit.

For a website hosted on this machine, I need to make change

Answer 1

The real issue is that there are two inetsvr directories, one for 32 bits and another for 64 bits. The 32 bits 'version', probably dormant and not updated, is under SysWOW64 !!!

When you open a file on %SystemDrive%\Windows\System32\inetsrv using a 32bits application, Windows will redirect you, with no warning, to %SystemDrive%\Windows\SysWOW64\inetsrv possible a very obsolete file. Interesting no?

Using a 64bits editor like Notepad++ will open the 'right' active configuration file.

The following hack will make the (active) 64 bits location, accessible from 32 bits apps (for example, some Visual Studio versions).

cd /d "%SystemDrive%\Windows\SysWOW64\inetsrv"
move Config Config.OLD
mklink /d Config "%SystemDrive%\Windows\System32\inetsrv\Config"

Answer 2

The solution was to restart IIS as @RickStrahl mentioned, but even though it seems you can properly open and edit the applicationHost.config with Notepad++ or the Visual Studio installed on the server and configured to open .config files, it's not actually showing you the correct content!.

I installed Notepad2 x64 and then I could see the application pool I was looking for.

Bloody brilliant Microsoft... :[