Dealing with error "Login failed for user ‘IIS APPPOOL\DefaultAppPool" on Windows 7.

The cause of this error is that a login is being attempted to a database with the "ApplicationPoolIdentity" account. In a development environment, you would prefer using your credentials to log into a SQL Express database. This can be fixed by doing the following:

• Go to IIS Manager
• Click on Application Pools
• Click on the offending application pool
• Click on the "Advanced Settings ..." link on the right-hand-side
• Find the "Identity" property and change it from "ApplicationPoolIdentity" to "LocalSystem"

Installing DotNetNuke (DNN) under Windows 7

Many of my students at BCIT have asked me for help with the installation of DotNetNuke (DNN) under IIS 7 on Windows 7. This is a little bit different from previous Windows operating systems because of the security model and the default application pool account that IIS 7 uses.

The prerequisite is to have SQL Server Express and the IIS feature activated on your Windows 7 environment.

Here are the steps that I recomended to my students:

1. Download DNN from http://dotnetnuke.codeplex.com/releases/view/44102 and install it in a directory like c:\DotNetNuke
2. Copy "release.config" to "web.config" in the root directory of DNN
3. In IIS 7 add a "New Application" under the "Default Web Site" pointing to the location where DNN was installed (like c:\DotNetNuke).
4. Create a new application pool named "dnn" in IIS 7. Changed "Load user profile" property to "False" by clicking on the "Advanced Settings" link of the "dnn" application pool.
5. Set the application pool for your "Default Web Site" to "dnn" by clicking on the "Basic Settings" link
6. Give the physical directory of your site (I.E. c:\DotNetNuke) full access permission to account "IIS AppPool\dnn"
7. Point your browser to http://localhost/DotNetNuke. If all goes well you will enter the DNN configuration wizard.