Get this error message after installing the "recent MS03-32 Security Update for Internet Explorer" security patch, if you are running .NET framework 1.0 and Windows XP professional.

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Update (03/17/04) -- got similar weird problem when trying to create ASP.NET web service on my local machine. Thought it was a problem with hitting port 81, but 80 wasn't working either. Found some recent event logs complaining about failing to log in as ASPNET account. Looked at account list, and ASPNET was set to "force user to change pwd" -- weird - doubtful that's correct.

Found my fixup cmd file, updated it to ignore the warning about .NET 1.1, and ran it.
Resets the ASPNET account with new random password, and fixes all settings for IIS to use .NET 1.1

Create web service works now!

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Update (11/24/03) -- got this same problem after recent Windows Update (not sure of exact security patch number). Ended up running this same fixup.cmd, even though I'm running .NET 1.1 Modified fixup.cmd to allow for fixing .NET 1.1 -- changed directory where it operates to the 1.1.4322 version directory.
I have uploaded my version here
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Thanks to this article at ASP.NET site, we have the solution.

Problem stems from an issue with the ASPNET account used to run the anonymous asp.net requests. Paraphrasing, this fix does the following:

• stops IIS and ASP.NET services
  
• deletes and recreates the ASPNET account with a known temporary password
  
• uses windows "runas" command to launch exe that creates the new ASPNET user profile
  
• re-registers ASP.NET, this creates a new random password for the account and applies ASP.NET access control settings for it
  
• restart the IIS service
  

keywords: server application unavailable asp.net 1.0 security patch