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IIS on Windows Vista or Windows 2008 does not show classic ASP error messages
Created: 9/10/2010    Updated: 9/10/2010

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Question My web server is running IIS on Windows Vista or Windows 2008 Server and my site displays the very generic error message below instead of showing the ASP error generated by a classic ASP application.

An error occurred on the server when processing the URL. Please contact the system administrator.


If your site is on a webhost on a shared server, then the server is operated by your webhost and you cannot do this step yourself. You will have to contact your webhost to have this setting changed for your site.
Answer IIS is not configured to display the ASP error message to the requesting client. To change this setting, use the command line option:

cscript %systemdrive%\inetpub\adminscripts\adsutil.vbs set w3svc/AspScriptErrorSentToBrowser true

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