Here is a video of Scott Hanselman's MIX10 talk about using MSDeploy and One-Click Publishing from within Visual Studio 2010.

I recently posted a blog showing how to set up ASP.NET authentication and password protect an entire website. What if you don't want to secure the entire website though? Or if you want to have different users authorized to different parts of the site?

Let's say you want to allow anyone to access the root of the website but you have two secure subfolders - "secure1" and "secure2" - that you only want certain users to access. Below demonstrates the use of the <location> tag to configure specific security settings for those individual folders.

When setting up the access rules (within the <authorization> attribute) be sure to not only set an <allow> but also a <deny> value as I did above. Otherwise your defined user will have access - but so will everyone else.

This example allows only user1 to access secure1 and only user2 to access secure2.

Okay, so once again - reminder to self - c# is case sensitive!

Inherits="SendMail"

...is NOT the same as...Inherits="sendmail"

Did you know you can use the IIS 7 Remote Administration Tool to recycle the application pool for your hosted site? You might not because accessing the command isn't intuitive.

Within the IIS7 Manager, right-click on your site name in the left-hand pane then mouse-over Deploy then select Recycle...

Gee, who wouldn't think to look for it there. :-)

After selecting Recycle, you are presented with four different recycle options. Not all are actually "recycle" operations though...

The one I highlighted in red is the true recycle operation. It will totally breakdown the running application pool (the process will actually drop from the system) and spin up a new process then reload your site into the newly created process pool.

If you haven't already check out the IIS Manager for Remote Administration you should add it to your list of things to do. It's an excellent tool for remotely managing IIS 7 servers and/or sites.

Here is an installation and site connection walk-through.

First be sure you take care of the necessary prerequisites as mentioned in this blog post.

Then download and run the appropriate installation package.

Of course you've got your standard license agreement page:

Then choose your destination folder:

Then confirm on the next screen and click Install to complete the process.

That's it! Super simple!

Okay, now let's do something with it. I have one of the FREE ASP.NET 4.0 RC test accounts from OrcsWeb that I want to remotely manage.

Open the newly installed Remote Management tools - you can find it right there in the start menu.

Once you open it you'll just see your local machine listed initially.

For my specific needs, I'm going to choose "Connect to a site...". Enter the Server name and Site name as provided during your hosting setup.

Then enter your username and password that was also provided when your hosting account was setup.

The last screen let's you name the connection, and that's it. You are now set up to manage the remote IIS7 site. Listed as a second connection under the local machine listing should now be the site you just set up. From there you can manage your IIS7 settings as needed.

This tool is a great user-friendly utility providing a lot of control over the IIS7 settings and features of your hosted account. Enjoy!

I haven't had any issues with Visual Studio 2010 RC but apparently there are certain situations where users might experience crashes if using UI Automation. Here is a blog about the problem with a link to the downloadable patches.

Visual Studio 2010 has an extremely functional and easy-to-use publish feature built-in. I use it to push sample code and changes up to my free ASP.NET 4.0 RC trial account (sure, I can get a site free as the CEO, but with this beta program running through March, anyone can get a free test account!).

When you get your account information for your hosting account it will contain all the information needed to quickly and easily set up VS2010 for 1-click-publishing. With those few pieces of information in hand, select the VS2010 Publish option then "<New...>" to add the connection.

You then get a dialog box with fields for you to enter your account information.

The service URL for our free beta program is already entered above, as is the name of my personal test site. I then just enter my username and password, and save the connection using the huge button at the top of the window. Note that if you click Close or Publish the settings will not get saved automatically.

Once the connection is set up, all you need to do for your code to be uploaded to the site is to click the single Publish icon.

If you need to edit the settings for any reason, there is a easy access edit icon right there next to the publish icon.

Microsoft has made it super easy with Visual Studio 2010 to publish and maintain your ASP.NET applications. You should definitely set up and use this handy feature.

C# is case-sensitive. C# is case-sensitive. C# is case-sensitive.

I have to keep reminding myself of this.

I'm not used to case-sensitivity yet and it continues to challenge me.

If you decide to install the IIS Manager for Remote Administration on Windows 7 you will likely initially get an error message stating that the IIS Management Console is not installed.

This error threw me for a little loop initially. It's pretty straight forward, but my first thought was "I know it isn't installed, that's what I'm installing". It seems that when installing the IIS Manager it should be smart enough to also enable the IIS Management Console, but it doesn't - likely for a reason related to security - but still, it struck me as a little odd.

Resolving the issue is easy and straight forward. Just as the message notes, open the Control Panel and select Turn Windows Features On or Off.

Then check the box next to the IIS Management Console.

Then click okay and accept the installation prompts.

After that completes, you can restart the installation of the IIS Manager for Remote Administration.

Visual Studio 2010, the latest and greatest version of Microsoft's developer toolset, will be releasing soon. I've been around hundreds of users (OrcsWeb clients, MVPs, and industry Insiders) who have used it through the beta cycle (as I have too) and the comments are overwhelmingly positive. If you haven't tried it out yet, you might want to check it out for free during the current RC phase.

Once you've got it downloaded and running, feel free to set up a free ASP.NET 4.0 RC test hosting account with us this month to try out the deployment related features and the general hosting experience.