Using the ASP.NET Web Site Administration Tool with Expression Web

Adding a login system to your site can offer several advantages. Not only can you provide member-only sections of your site, but you can also offer site visitors a custom experience by keeping track of profile information for your users. For Expression Web users, the ASP.NET login controls offer an easy way to add an advanced login system without being a programmer, and the ASP.NET Web Site Administration Tool (WSAT) makes it simple to administer an ASP.NET login system by allowing you to easily add users, set up permissions for users, and manage users.

Here’s the problem. You can see the link  to administer your website on the menu for ASP.NET login controls inserted onto your page in Expression Web, but if you click that link, you’re presented with a dialog telling you that using this link isn’t supported as shown below. What I’m going to show you in this post is how you can create a shortcut to launch the WSAT for use with Expression Web.

The WSAT is actually part of the .NET Framework and is installed into the C:WindowsMicrosoft.NETFrameworkv2.0.50727ASP.NETWebAdminFiles directory. If you’re using Visual Studio or Visual Web Developer Express Edition, clicking the Administer Website link shown above launches the ASP.NET Development Server with the necessary options to host the WSAT. The trick to using the WSAT with your Expression Web site is knowing what those options are.

There are two steps involved in using the Expression Web Development server in Expression Web to host the WSAT. The first step is to launch the development server and the second step is to use the correct URL to browse to the WSAT for your particular site.

The easiest way to launch the Expression Web Development Server for use with the WSAT is to create a Windows shortcut. To do that, follow these steps.

1. Right-click on your Desktop (or another location where you’d like your shortcut to appear) and select New, Shortcut.
2. Enter the following for the path of the shortcut. (Note that this is for Expression Web 3. If you are using a different version, your path will be different.)

“C:Program FilesMicrosoft ExpressionWeb 3Expression.DevServer.exe” /port:65000 /path:”C:WindowsMicrosoft.NETFrameworkv2.0.50727asp.netwebadminfiles” /vpath:”/wsat”

The path above appears on more than one line, but you’ll enter it on one line for your shortcut.

1. Click Next.
2. Enter “Launch WSAT” or a name of your choosing for the shortcut and click Finish.

You now have a shortcut that will launch the Expression Web Development Server so that it can be used for the WSAT. The next step is to browse to the correct URL for your particular site. Here’s the path you’ll need to use in your browser.

http://localhost:65000/wsat/default.aspx?applicationPhysicalPath=&applicationUrl=/

For example, if you are using the WSAT to manage a site located at C:UsersJimMy Web SitesMy Site, you would browse to the following URL.

http://localhost:65000/wsat/default.aspx?applicationPhysicalPath=C:UsersJimMy Web SitesMy Site&applicationUrl=/My Site

(If your site’s path contains spaces, don’t worry about it. The WSAT will take care of them and everything will still work fine.)

Once you enter that URL into your browser, you should see the WSAT as shown below. You can then manage your users and permissions for your site easily and quickly.

I realize that it’s a lot of work to launch the WSAT using this method, so I plan on developing an add-in for Expression Web that automates all of this for you. However, that won’t be done until Microsoft releases the service pack for Expression Web 3 so that add-ins will work with the new version. Until then, you can use the method I’ve outlined above to manage your ASP.NET login site in Expression Web.