Windows Server and Updates causing 404 Error?

Question

I was on the fence of which section to post this in but I think I came to the correct place. Apologies upfront if I was wrong!

I have a Windows Server 2008, hosting a small ASP.NET Web Application (IIS7) for almost a year now. Through-out the year, I notice that randomly on what seems to be, random pages, myself and others will get the 404 Forbidden / Access is denied error.

Every time, the solution has been to run windows updates on the Windows Server 2008 machine which is hosting the ASP.NET web applications.

On simular issues, I have seen suggestions that setting runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true" in the web.config will resolve 404 issues.

<system.webServer>
    <modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true"></modules>
    <handlers>
      <remove name="UrlRoutingHandler"/>
    </handlers>
  </system.webServer>

What is the reason for windows updates, on my Windows Server 2008, to cause this 404 issue on my ASP.NET Web Application? Also, will this code resolve my issue? Of course many would say to test it out, but the error is rare and could take a week, month / months to arise.

Answer 1

I have the same problem trying to install the hotfix(s). I went here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/980368 and updated the webconfig that is noted and that corrected my issue with the 404

Answer 2

For a real fix, apply this hot fix :

http://hotfixv4.microsoft.com/Windows%207/WindowsServer%202008%20R2/sp1/Fix305889/7600/free/407288_intl_x64_zip.exe

Read here about problem / solution

This article describes a update that enables certain Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 or IIS 7.5 handlers to handle requests whose URLs do not end with a period. Specifically, these handlers are mapped to "." request paths. Currently, a handler that is mapped to a "." request path handles only requests whose URLs end with a period...

runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true" is a bad idea.