PhishThis!

I had copied the IIS7 config files from an already-configured server to a new server I was building. The two servers were going to be load balanced (non-NLB). After overwriting the config files on the new server with those that I had exported from the old server, I discovered that my app pools kept crashing. I attempted to reset the domain account credentials on the app pools, but found myself getting:

hresult:0×80090005, Message: Failed to commit configuration. Bad Data.

Built-in account works, domain accounts did not. Given that I’m much too lazy to re-configure all of the application pool IDs, I began looking for a way to gracefully import settings from the other server. Turns out, there isn’t an “import” button, so to speak. I did find that using “Shared configuration” I could essentially accomplish an import.

In IIS manager, you need to export the config from the already-configured server. In IIS manager, click the Server node, and go to Shared Configuration under Management.

Click “Export Configuration”

Enter the path you’d like to export the config to, and set an encryption key password:

Copy administration.config, applicationHost.config, and configEncKey.key to your new server to a temp location.

On the new server, go back to the “Shared Configuration” section and check “Enable shared configuration.” Enter the location in physical path and click “Apply.” It should prompt for the encryption password that you had set. Enter it, and reset IIS.

After resetting IIS, go back to Shared Configuration and uncheck “Enable shared configuration.” Click apply. You should see this:

Click YES and it will import all of the settings from your Shared Config into the local config on your new IIS server.

At this point, all you should need to do is change your server-specific site bindings, and it should be good to go.