Sorry Richard, I am probably not explaining things welI, or my terminology is confusing.
As you know, In IIS you can either point the default web site or if you right click on the sites node you add a new web site and point that to the folder where you install is. After install , you then have the option in IIS to add bindings and apply https certficates for all your portals.
This is what we have done in our other 2 DNN sites on our virtual servers 2008 R2, and I am certain this is the approved method by DNNCorp .
BUT , in our new AWS 2012 server, we cannot install into either the default website or any other site we create in IIS as we encounter "It
is an error to use a section registered as
allowDefinition='MachineToApplication' beyond application level. This
error can be caused by a virtual directory not being configured as an
application in IIS."
We were only able to install by creating an application and installing into it (as per you excellent post), however an application or a virtual directory has no options in IIS for adding multiple bindings and as we want to make use of multiple parent portals and share modules / data across them an application wont work for us.
Unless I am missing something (I hope)?