Add Virtual Directory programmatically, for easy “new-box” deployment.

I’m always trying to make my project deployment as easy as possible.

One of the “problems” I’ve encountered is keeping my solution structure, that is:

– MySolutionDirectory

– MyWebProject

– MyBusinessLayerClassLibrary

– MyDataAccessLayerClassLibrary

– MyEntitiesClassLibrary

– etc.

This is hard to do, especially when the “Add Web Project” creates a virtual directory in

my wwwroot directory by default which breaks my desired structure.

When I want to initialize the Solution or to pull the entire solution from the

VSS (e.g – on a new programmer station) I need to take these steps beforehand –

Create the directory [solution-path]\[web-project\webservice name]
Go to my IIS and add the required virtual directory which will redirect to step 1 path.

Otherwise, the VS.NET will create the web folders in my wwwroot automatically, which will again break my preferred structure.

In addition, in some of my solutions, I have more than 1 web project\webservice and repeating these steps can get very annoying.

So, after reading about IIS API, I’ve created an IIS helper utility for creating virtual directories by

demand in one-click EXE.

The configuration file is quite simple:

<VDSettings>
    <Directories>
        <Directory>
            <DirectoryPath>C:\Projects\MySolution\MyWebProject</DirectoryPath>
            <VirtualDirectoryName>MyWebProject</VirtualDirectoryName>
        </Directory>
        <Directory>
            <DirectoryPath>C:\Projects\MySolution\MyWebShareProject</DirectoryPath>
            <VirtualDirectoryName>MyWebShareProject</VirtualDirectoryName>
            <CreateUnder>MyWebShareProject</CreateUnder>
        </Directory>
    </Directories>
</VDSettings>

This sample demonstrates how to add “MyWebProject” Virtual Directory and create another

Virtual Directory, under “MyWebProject”, named “MyWebShareProject”.

* 2 Notes:

You can create the virtual directory under a WebSite by using “WebSiteName” element under the “Directory” element.
If the “DirectoryPath” doesn’t exist – the utility will create it before setting the Virtual Directory path.

Now, when a co-worker in my company is trying to deploy my solution on his station, all he needs to

do is to run VDCreator.exe and he can continue the deployment via VS.NET -> “Open From Source Control…” option.

That’s what I call “child’s play” deployment.

The files:

VDCreator bin1.zip (4.62 KB) (EXE & config file only)

VDCreator Source.zip (9.64 KB) (Source files included)