Did you know: Enable File Level Authentication in IIS 7 / 7.5

With Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2, we have a new Web Server with a completely different UI. It’s sometimes difficult to get your things done the way you used to do with the age old IIS 5 and IIS 6 UI. Here I am going to post some “Did you know” series, which will show you how you did a configuration settings in IIS 6 and how you can do the same in IIS 7 and IIS 7.5.

In IIS 6.0,

To enable, File Level Authentication in IIS 6.0.

• Go to the Web Site (Default Web Site in our case)
• Right click on the file e.g. iisstart.htm -> Properties
• Click File Security
• Click Edit… under Authentication and access control
  
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In IIS 7 / 7.5

To enable, File Level Authentication in IIS 7 / 7.5

• Go the Web Site (Default Web Site in our case)
• Click Content View
• Right click on the file e.g. iisstart.htm -> Switch to Features View
• Double click Authentication
• Now, select the Authentication Type you want to configure
  
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NOTE: you can also make similar changes in the applicationHost.config, e.g.

<location path="Default Web Site/iisstart.htm"><system.webServer><security><authentication><anonymousAuthentication enabled="true" /><basicAuthentication enabled="false" /><windowsAuthentication enabled="false" /></authentication></security></system.webServer></location>

Hope this helps,
Vivek Kumbhar