I support a DNN 4.3.5 site, currently hosted on Server Intellect using Microsoft SQL Server 2000.  To get ready to upgrade it, I'm trying to install a copy of the site on my Vista Home Premium laptop.  I've fully activated IIS 7 (although 4.3.5 uses the "classic .NET" app pool).  I've installed SQL Server 2005 Express and have successfully restored my production database to a test database with the same name, same userid and password.  I've installed the files in c:\inetpub\wwwroot\oaklandsymphonychorus.  I've modified the web.config to use the correct (I thought) directory access.  But I can NOT get the web site to come up; I can't even get it to talk to DNN.  All I ever get with http://localhost is a redirect to the IIS site.

Is it a problem that I dumped the backed-up files from my production web site into the new directory?  I wasn't sure about copying the backed-up files over a basic installation, so I just did that; was that a mistake?  I have the files for a basic 4.3.5 install, in fact, I successfully got a 4.3.5 (unconfigured) site to come up.  But I've been beating on this for 3 days and nothing works...  Any suggestion would be welcome.

Sorry I didn't respond sooner - got pulled to other projects.  I've checked the database and the portal alias is correct, it says "localhost."

Reading the install doc, it reads as if the site has to be named "DotNetNuke" - the instructions say to call the directory that, to call the web site that in IIS, etc.  How necessary is this?  I was able to bring up a blank DNN site on IIS, before I got my initial install screwed up, and nothing was called DotNetNuke, so it can't be critical.  I think it has to be that default.aspx file that I accidentally blew away - but I can't get IIS to re-install.  Any suggestions?  All I ever get browsing to localhost is the IIS logo.  I've talked to the IIS people and they suggested re-installing IIS - but the system thinks IIS is installed and won't do it again.

Sorry for the delay in responding; I just got back from vacation. I don't get any error message at all.  After an extended period showing "connecting," where the address bar shows "c://localhost/osc", I get the IIS7 logo, with a redirect to http://www.iis.net.  The address bar just shows "c://localhost" until I click on the logo.

I'm glad to hear you say that the site name doesn't matter; I didn't see why it should.  After extended conversations with the IIS forum, I'm now reasonably convinced that my IIS config is correct (although I still remember seeing all those IIS default document files under c:\inetpub\wwwroot, and they aren't there now because I overwrote them with my own site, and then deleted the whole mess).  I think there must be some DNN related reason why my site won't come up. 

I haven't successfully started the DNN install wizard since my abortive attempt to install my site directly in "c:\inetpub\wwwroot" (instead of in a subdirectory, or some other directory).  I installed a blank version of DNN 4.3.5, NOT in c:\inetpub\wwwroot, and WAS able to get that to come up via the wizard.  I then copied my existing site over the blank install, and I haven't been able to get the wizard to start since then, either.  These two incidents happened about the same time; I got confused by the IIS configuration instructions on the ADFWebServer site about installing DNN under Vista (mainly due to total ignorance of IIS; I understand much better now).   

Should I just blow all this away and work with my basic site files?  I mean, my basic site has already been "installed" on our production system - is there some config change I need to make to have it "installed" again here?  I've worked with ZenCart, and it has a directory that has to be there to cause the installer to run and link the site with the DB; does DNN have something like that?  It's very hard to troubleshoot something when you have no visible error messages.