Brian

Sorry to butt-in but your support for NEWB has helped me fix the same problems. Your check-list was the clincher. I fixed some more problems too.

1 - I didn't physically locate my files in Inetpub, I made another folder on the c:/ drive named INET_DEV   this keeps my other web sites untouched.

2 - -I found that [Network Service] was the name to use instead of ASPNET

3 - I was on a new pc and had to go to Windows Explorer, Tools¬[Folder Options]¬View ensure that ‘ Simple File Sharing’ is unchecked.  This way you can easily assign rights to the file for the [Network Service] user in NTFS.

3- I also kicked the DNN Install Wizard into touch in the web.config.  The DNN Install wizard makes unwanted edits to your web.config and it is unreliable.  I found it claimed to approve of my NTFS file permission settings.  But it was wrong.  Then, even when all was set up correctly, the Install wizard din't start the database scripts.

Making the following mod to web.config gets rid of the wizard, and the db scripts ran-in fine.  Up popped the portal!

<!--  Switching off InstallWizard->

//

Thanks again for all your help.  I am not a complete newbie, but this install has taken hours to debug.  It would have been much longer without you.

Cheers

Dave

I need to revisit this thread.

I was able to get my portal up and running, through the http://localhost... URL. 

My next step is to have this portal running on one of our XP machines so that it functions as an internet on our domain (Windows 2003 Server).  I can navigate to the hosting machine's default web site and view a test html page I put into the root of wwwroot.

If I create a virtual directory, with the portal phycally stored in wwwroot or some other place on the machine, attempting to access the portal from another machine gives me the "403 Forbidden" error.

What extra steps are needed to be able to run the application as an intranet?

Thanks!