Rename Virtual Directories in IIS 7.0

Have you ever wondered why the box to change the name or “Alias” on an application or virtual directory is greyed out (see screenshot below)? I found a way to change the name without recreating all your settings. It uses the built in administration commands in IIS7, called appcmd.

Renaming Applications In IIS7

1. Open a command prompt to see all of your applications.

   C:> %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd list app
   
   APP "Default Web Site/OldApplicationName"
   APP "Default Web Site/AnotherApplication"
   

2. Run a command like this to change your “OldApplicationName” path to “NewApplicationName”. Now you can use http://localhost/newapplicationname

   C:> %systemroot\%system32\inetsrv\appcmd set app "Default Web Site/OldApplicationName" -path:/NewApplicationName;
   
   APP object "Default Web Site/OldApplicationName" changed
   

Renaming Virtual Directories In IIS7

1. Open a command prompt to see all of your virtual directories.

   C:> %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd list vdir
   
   VDIR "Default Web Site/OldApplicationName/Images" (physicalPath:\serverimages)
   VDIR "Default Web Site/OldApplicationName/Data/Config" (physicalPath:\serverconfig)
   

   We want to rename /Images to /Images2 and /Data/Config to /Data/Config2. Here are the example commands:
   

   C:> %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd set vdir "Default Web Site/OldApplicationName/Images" -path:/Images2
   
   VDIR object "Default Web Site/OldApplicationName/Images" changed
   
   C:> %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd set vdir "Default Web Site/OldApplicationName/Data/Config" -path:/Data/Config2
   
   VDIR object "Default Web Site/OldApplicationName/Data/Config" changed