ASP Downloads Text Instead of Executing
Article ID: 168501
Article Last Modified on 6/22/2005
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft Internet Information Server 3.0
This article was previously published under Q168501
We strongly recommend that all users upgrade to Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) version 6.0 running on Microsoft Windows Server 2003. IIS 6.0 significantly increases Web infrastructure security. For more information about IIS security-related topics, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
SYMPTOMS
Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) download instead of executing,
even after you install the ASP fix for IIS.
CAUSE
You may have a virtual directory defined to a physical directory
which parent is another virtual directory, and both have different
permissions.
Example
Physical Directory c:\InetPub\wwwroot has an alias of "/" with Read
Access
Physical Directory c:\InetPub\wwwroot\cgi-scripts has an alias of
"/cgi-scripts" with Execute access.
If you were to type in <server>/cgi-scripts/<filename>.asp everything
would work. However, if you used the 8.3 naming convention
.. <server>/cgi-sc~1/<filename>.asp, the server would not find the
virtual directory because it is not aware of long file names and
their 8.3 equivalents). Because it did not find a virtual directory,
it would reference the file through the physical directory structure.
Therefore, it would load the ASP file with the roots access of Read.
WORKAROUND
It is recommended that you never create virtual directories to physical
directories under existing virtual directories.
Keywords: kbinterop kbprb KB168501