I was getting the error, "The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion" every time I tried to start the IIS service. I checked the logs and the event viewer and I wasn't getting any special error messages so I thought I would try uninstalling IIS first. While uninstalling, it lagged and the status bar stopped and I had to kill the inetinfo.exe process before it would finish the uninstall.

During the reinstall it stopped and lagged and before it would finish I had to kill the inetinfo.exe process again. After I reinstalled IIS it still wouldn't bring up http://localhost. When I went to the service manager to restart IIS it wouldn't even restart until I killed inetinfo.exe process yet again. I rebooted and after the reboot it still didn't work. I still had to kill the inetinfo.exe before IIS would restart.

I finally decided to check and make sure that IUSR account had access to the wwwroot directory. It didn't so I added the IUSR user on the security tab for the wwwroot folder and gave the IUSR user read & execute, list folder contents, and read permissions. After I gave the IUSR user those permissions for the wwwroot folder I was able to access http://localhost with the generic "Windows XP professional, your web service is running and is the best thing since sliced bread" page!

I then did a quick google search for "register asp.net." I found the Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 306005 which tells you how to repair or register .NET Framework after a reinstall. I learned the hard way that you don't want to uninstall the .NET Framework and reinstall it. I ended up having to reinstall windows after a fiasco where I tried that very thing. Anyway, if you go to http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;306005 you can view the MS knowledge base article that tells you how to register the .NET Framework.

After I registered the .Net Framework I tested ASP.Net by creating a file with <% Response.Write ("Hello World!") %> and named it aspnetTest.aspx and loaded in my browser and got Hello World. All is well again!