There must be some sort of permissions set on the file system otherwise this will never work. Basically you can setup a DNN site with the iis apppool identity (best solution) or you should have a dedicated SA account that has also write permissions on the folder of your DNN instance.

You should use the first username with your DNN installation, the one you used to setup the site initially. Did you used the same web.config as with your installation?

I have written the first two parts: How to install DNN 7 on a Windows 7 workstation and migrate it to a Windows Server 2008 R2. The last part where I will actually install the backup on the production server will be ready later today but we have a storm here with fresh snow (Switzerland) so I have other things to worry about now.

Your basic process:

- copy files

- copy DB

- adjust web config to work with copied DB is fine.  Done it dozens of times.

Do you have matching machineKey settings?  Usually the machineKey is set in the web config. So when you copy the site files, you copy it, but a 'bright' administrator may have deleted it allowing the live server to use the one in machine.config.  The machine.config on your copy machine is unlikely to have a matching key.

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Best wishes,
- Richard
Agile Development Consultant, Practitioner, and Trainer
www.dynamisys.co.uk