WebMatrix launch failed, ERROR: IIS 7.5 Express could not be initialized

In this blog, we will have a look at one of the issues we face after a successful install of WebMatrix. WebMatrix fail to launch and the error it throws is “IIS 7.5 Express could not be initialized. Please make sure that it is installed and configured correctly”.

WMerror

Error Stack:

System.ApplicationException: IIS 7.5 Express could not be initialized. Please make sure that it is installed and configured correctly. ---> System.ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: type
at System.Activator.CreateInstance(Type type, Boolean nonPublic)
at Microsoft.Web.VersionManager.IisVersionManager..ctor()
at Microsoft.WebMatrix.Host.IisExpressHelperServiceImplementation.Initialize()
at Microsoft.WebMatrix.Host.IisExpressHelperServiceImplementation..ctor()
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at Microsoft.WebMatrix.Host.IisExpressHelperServiceImplementation..ctor()
at Microsoft.WebMatrix.Host.Shell.ShellApplication.Initialize(Boolean localDevelopmentMode, Boolean resetPreferences)
at Microsoft.WebMatrix.Host.Shell.ShellApplication.Execute(Boolean localDevelopmentMode, Boolean resetPreferences, Boolean resetPreferencesNoLaunch, Boolean warmupMode)

Cause:

The cause of this issue is left out bits from prior installation of Pre-release IIS 7.5 Express (beta1/beta2) on the machine in user profile folder.

Recommendations:

1) Uninstall IIS Express from Add/Remove programs. Reinstall IIS Express from here.

2) Remove IISExpress from My Documents and launch IISExpress from command line without passing any arguments. On Command Prompt, navigate to “C:\Program Files (x86)\IIS Express”, type in iisexpress and then hit enter.

3) Check if HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Microsoft.IIS.VersionManager exists and if it does, take ownership of this and use replace all child object permission with inheritable permission from this object.

4 Comments

  • Я только зарегистрировался и ещё не выходил

  • My problematic symptoms exist exactly as described here, and none of the recommended actions solves the problem. Interestingly, action #3 is not possible, as even Administrator cannot change any permissions for the stated keys. That may actually point to the source of the problem (i.e. IIS and/or the setup facility may also be having fundamental registry-access problems). But if so, how to diagnose an fix it?

  • it worked! Whew!

    I had to recursively go through setting owner and privilege to
    HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Microsoft.IIS.VersionManager
    and the items that appeared inside of it... so there was a CLSID and CurVer
    and since it was there I did similar to

    HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Microsoft.IIS.VersionManager.1

    and if finally started working...

    Thanks you Divya

    alan

  • Removed IISExpress from my MyDocuments folder and reinstalled, starting through command line solved my problem.

    Thank you so much Divya..!

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