Manage Your Default Documents with IIS Manager

Take charge of your default documents by using the IIS7 Remote Administration tool. If you don't already have it installed, check out the prerequisite step, then read this post on getting it installed and connected to your site.

Once installed, click on the Default Documents icon to access that module:

You are then presented with a list of the current valid default documents for your site. You can easily add another valid default document:

Or if you click on one of the existing documents you can manage the list - like removing an entry or adjusting the order.

Who cares? Well, you should. I've probably seen hundreds if not well into the thousands of support requests from hosting clients who are confused when their desired page doesn't load by default (using just the URL and not typing out the page name). By looking at the list you can understand what the valid options are and adjust your page name - or you can modify the list to include whatever page name you want.

Something else to be aware of - the order matters. The web server is going to look for documents in that list starting at the top. So, if you have a default.htm file like the example above, but also have a default.asp which you really want shown, the above isn't going to work for you. You'd need to make sure the desired default document is at the top of the list to be sure it is the first item picked up and displayed.

Happy hosting!