How to get around 'HTTP 503 Error: Service not available' error in IIS 7.5 on Windows 7.1 SP1?

My localhost (the default website) has not been active for a longtime and I wanted to test a PHP script. To my dismay, I could not even browse to the IISStart.htm that is on all installations. I got the following error.

503Error_01

I am using a Toshiba Satellite laptop X64 with Windows 7 Ultimate with SP1. I had various programs running while writing the book on SQL Server Reporting Services 2012 such as PHP, SharePoint Server, etc. It is possible I had tweaked items around a lot.

I stopped and started the server and the problem remained. There was a fix in stackoverflow site pertaining to this error.

 

To get this going, I had to make some changes to the advanced settings of the Application pools by clicking the Application Pools as shown:

503Error_02.png

 

Clicking Advanced Settings displays the following:

503Error_03.png

As suggested the Load User Profile was changed to FALSE. I restarted the server and the 503 Error was displayed when I browsed the IISStart.htm as in the first image above.

Then I looked at the Application Pools status and realized that the DefaultappPool had stopped.

503Error_04.png

When I started it the 503 Error went away and i could display the IISStart.htm page.

503Error_05.png

I went back to Advanced Settings and the 'Load User Profile' was set to TRUE. Changing to FALSE did not produce the 503 error. 

I looked at what this settings meant and here  is a screen shot. This sets the mode to IIS 6.0

503Error_06.png


 

How do you create an application in IIS 7.0?

Now that Windows 7 has become very popular it is easy to host web applications on IIS 7. You can use the IIS 7 interface to create an empty web application.

In the Search programs and files box, after you click Start in the desktop enter IIS and initiate a search. You will see both IIS 7 and IIS 6 in the response at the top.

Click IIS 7. The IIS Manager gets displayed as shown.

Right click Default Web Site to display the menu shown.

Click Add Application...menu item. The Add Application window is displayed as shown.

Provide an alias of your choosing. Herein TestAppIIS. Accept the default for application pool.

Click on the ellipsis button (...) for the physical path.

In the folder browser select a folder for the files (you can also create an empty folder). Click OK. This gets into the Add Application window you saw earlier.

Hit Test Settings...button.


You will get a warning as to the account access to the file.

Click on Connect as... button.

The Connect as window shows up. Choose the option (specific user) shown next.

Click on the Set... button.
In the Set Credentials window enter the credentials (herein the administrator of this computer)as shown.

When you hit OK, the information gets into Connect as window.

Click OK. You will be returned to the Add Application window.

Click Test Settings... button one more time.

This time it looks Ok.

Click Close. Click OK on Add Application.

Your application will now be available in the Default Web Site as shown here.