Date parsed: 04/04/2008 17:20:28
Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 00:20:28 -0700

I'm running XP Pro/SP2 + patches and updates, with Visual Studio
Professional 2008 (and no prior installation of Visual Studio ever
installed).

When attempting to open an ASP.NET Web application project, Visual Studio
shuts down immediately and with no error message. I can open Visual Studio -
but when subsequently attempting to open the project, Visual Studio
immediately shuts down.

More specifically:
I can create a new ASP.NET Web application project. By default it uses the
ASP.NET development server. The project loads and runs just fine that way.
But I want to run the application via IIS. So I go to the project properties
| Web Tab | then select "Use IIS Web server", then click on Create Virtual
Directory. At this point I can save changes and press F5 to run the project.
It fires up just fine, displaying the default.aspx in IE7. I can stop and
start the project multiple times and everything seems fine. But if I close
the project in Visual Studio (File |
Close Solution) - and then attempt to open the project again (via any
method, including File | Recent Projects) Visual Studio will close almost
immediately and with no error message at all.

The only way I can get the project to open again (without VS shutting down
unexpectedly) is to manually edit the .csproj file and change
<UseIIS>True</UseIIS> to <UseIIS>False</UseIIS>. That is, I manually
reconfigure the project to NOT use IIS. Doing this lets me back in and I can
compile and run the project. If I then switch it back to using IIS, it will
run just fine until I close the project and subsequently open it again - at
which point VS will shut down without warning (again).

What I have done to fix (but to no avail) includes:
1. uninstalled and reinstalled IIS
2. repaired my Visual Studio installation
3. uninstalled and reinstalled Visual Studio
4. ran aspnet_regiis -i several times (after each time I did any of the
above).

Separately, I have a second development machine with a virtually identical
software configuration (XP Pro/SP2 with Visual Studio 2008 Pro) and it has
no such problems. The other machine (that works fine) has identical project,
security and IIS settings. I can follow the exact same steps to create the
Web application project and switch to IIS and everything is just fine on
that other machine.

I would really appreciate useful suggestions on how to fix this, as I don't
want to reimage the machine if possible.

Thanks!

FWIW, in a separate post regarding a similar problem experienced earlier
(but now replaced by this new problem) I mentioned that I had been
developing ASP.NET 1.1 ---- BUT that was on a completely different machine.
I have never had the 1.1. Framework on either of the machines described
above (the one that fails and the identical one that works). These are the
first ASP.NET Web applications I have attempted to work with on these
machines.