How to make IIS Express the default web server in Visual Studio?

4
votes

Is there a way to set IIS Express as the default launch option in Visual Studio 2010 SP1? Currently, it uses Visual Studio Development Server by default and one has to execute "Use IIS Express..." command manually.

1
visual-studio-2010iisiis-express
Since this option is set on a per-project level: Are you interested in making IIs Express your default webserver for every project you create or just configure your current project? – Filburt

1 Answers

13
votes
  1. Right click on the Default Startup project file in your Solution explorer.
  2. Select "Properties".
  3. Click on the Web Tab on the left hand side
  4. scroll down and select the "Use Local IIS Web server radio button
  5. Tick the checkbox "Use IIS Express"

Another useful tid bit in the section is that you can tell IIS not to launch browsers when you debug and just wait for a browser process to hit it. This is really nice for cross-browser testing.

Just above the previous said section, look for a radio button titled "Don't open a page. Wait for a request from an external app" under Start Action section of the same page

EDIT:

To set all projects made to behave this way do the following:

  1. Tools -> Options
  2. Projects and Solutions
  3. Web Projects
  4. Tick "Use IIS Express for new file-based web sites and projects