Why install CMS to virtual directory?

Bryan Drenner asked on July 16, 2014 21:54

As a developer, if I install the CMS to a site root directory, I would expect to access the CMS web application at that site's bound URL. However, the Kentico 8 installer insists on creating a virtual directory and separate application pool. So for example, if I create a site "mydomain.local" at C:\inetpub\wwwroot\mydomain.local, the freshly installed Kentico site must be accessed at http://mydomain.local/mydomain.local/. This strikes me as, well, odd.

I know how to rewire this, as documented in this answer. However, I'm wondering if I'm missing something, conceptually.

My question is: Why does Kentico 8 want to install to a virtual directory by default? Is there some advantage, other than minimizing conflict when grafting the CMS onto an existing site?

Correct Answer

Radek Macalik answered on July 17, 2014 09:24

Hello.

Those reasons were mainly internal. We wanted to unify Kentico project structure with our solution and source-base, which brings certain advantages especially for our development process, hotfixing, upgrades and so on.

However, it is still possible to install Kentico into web site root instead of virtual directory.

Thank you.

Best Regards,

Radek Macalik

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Recent Answers

Brenden Kehren answered on July 17, 2014 13:54

I also find this somewhat of a disappointing "feature". In fact, I went to do 2 updates yesterday and since I didn't include the CMS directory in my test server, the KIM tool errored out. I found this answer an seems like a limitation in my opinion.

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