Visual Studio and IIS Autoconfiguration

Visual Studio has a nice feature where it can automatically reconfigure IIS for you when you run a suitable “services” project.

The benefit is that you don’t need to manually mess with IIS - just a one time check to make sure the virtual directory set in your .csproj is correct and everything will “just work” reguardless of the folder in which you check out your source code.

The downside is the effect when you have two copies of your source checked out for different purposes - unless you disable this feature, you’ll keep finding the same server handling both of your configured virtual directories, instead of each server remaining separate.

As usual, oddball behaviour when debugging has a relatively simple cause - the challenge is in finding that simple explanation when you see some really weird symptoms.