In IIS instead of pointing to just the DotNetNuke Folder, you should point the virtual directory to C:\Dotnetnuke\website  that should take care of the issue!!

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-Mitchel Sellers
Microsoft MVP, ASPInsider, DNN MVP
CEO/Director of Development - IowaComputerGurus Inc.


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This clued me in to my problem: you don't want to name your DNN subdirectory the same as your configured virtual directory in IIS.  I had named them both "portal", and it didn't work well.  My pages loaded, but MS Visual Studio gives you the aforementioned compile error when you build the site.  I have web.config pages in my root, and several other subdirectories.  Multiple web.config files work OK, as long as you have them in the right place and have your virtuals set up correctly.

In short, renaming the folder "dnnportal", and leaving the virtual directory as "portal" solved this problem for me.

 

I had recently received this error when I in-advertently copied the web.config file into a subfolder of the root.

Rich