Browser Link not working in Visual Studio 2015 Community - asp.net

Question

I just started using Visual Studio and tried to duplicate a tutorial by Bob Tabor. Trying to display a HTML file using Browser connect.
Here's what I'm doing:
New project
Web ASP.NET Web Application
Empty
Add new item --> HTML page
Add 'test" to to title and body
Try to view in browser - get http://localhost:51962/HtmlPage1.html
with no response
Browser dashboard says no connections
Added to web.config:
<system.webServer>
<handlers>
<add name="Browser Link for HTML" path="*.html" verb="*"
type="System.Web.StaticFileHandler, System.Web, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a"
resourceType="File" preCondition="integratedMode" />
</handlers>
</system.webServer>
But nothing seems to work. Could someone provide the proper steps?
I think it might be a server issue. localhost is a connection to a MySQL database called final project. BlueWater is the name of my computer. I'm able to connect to the Mysql database. I made sure I was using 4.5.2 and also that our web.config files match. Thanks again for your help. Here's a screenshot of Server Explorer:

Answer 1

I tried to replicate your issue and the results were as desired. Let me add screenshots so that you can follow through. I am using Visual Studio 2015 Community on Windows 10 with 4.5.2 .NET Framework.
Starting a new project
Choosing the type of project
Adding an HTML page
Adding test to HTML page
(Clicked on Google Chrome to run the project)
Running the project
My Web.config looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!--
For more information on how to configure your ASP.NET application, please visit
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=169433
-->
<configuration>
<system.web>
<compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.5.2"/>
<httpRuntime targetFramework="4.5.2"/>
</system.web>
<system.codedom>
<compilers>
<compiler language="c#;cs;csharp" extension=".cs"
type="Microsoft.CodeDom.Providers.DotNetCompilerPlatform.CSharpCodeProvider, Microsoft.CodeDom.Providers.DotNetCompilerPlatform, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"
warningLevel="4" compilerOptions="/langversion:6 /nowarn:1659;1699;1701"/>
<compiler language="vb;vbs;visualbasic;vbscript" extension=".vb"
type="Microsoft.CodeDom.Providers.DotNetCompilerPlatform.VBCodeProvider, Microsoft.CodeDom.Providers.DotNetCompilerPlatform, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"
warningLevel="4" compilerOptions="/langversion:14 /nowarn:41008 /define:_MYTYPE=\"Web\" /optionInfer+"/>
</compilers>
</system.codedom>
</configuration>
Can you replicate these steps?
EDIT: DCR and I weren't able to get IISExpress to show web page. So, we decided to troubleshoot multiple areas. Here's what worked.
IIS Webserver was running, so we decided to leverage that (if you don't have IIS you can install it by going to Start > Control Panel > Programs > Turn Windows features on or off > choose Internet Information Services > OK).
We went to http://localhost and ensured that IIS welcome page was seen
We closed Visual Studio 2015 Community and reopened it as an administrator
Right click WebApplication1 project. Click Properties
Click Web on the left side menu
Start action was chosen. Ellipse (...) button was clicked and HtmlPage1.html page was selected
Under servers there's a dropdown. Local IIS was chosen. Project URL changed to http://localhost/WebApplication1
Click on create virtual directory. Successful message was noticed
Save the project changes
Press F5
Page appears as desired on http://localhost/WebApplication1/ URL
https://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/97122/discussion-between-dcr-and-zedfoxus has some more things that could help others troubleshoot similar problem.
Attempts were made to review answers from Unable to launch the IIS Express Web server source as well.

Answer 2

I found the issue to be an issue with my html source and where I was placing my Scripts.Render() and Styles.Render() methods. I placed each method outside of the html tags. Looking at the source from Firefox showed me that there were some html tags that were incorrectly closed. So I placed the #Scripts.Render() methods within the body tags and the #Styles.Render() methods in the head tags and the Browser Links started working again.

Answer 3

For the one who is still not getting in the visual studio like i wasn't before, try the following steps which worked for me.
install browser-sync if not installed globally through npm refer here
open a command prompt in the folder where your code is residing & run following command:
browser-sync start --files="**/*"
you will get dashboard link of browser-sync running locally. Go their and grab piece of code which needs to be embedded in the html file before body tag.
once you do that, and open your html, you will get the following message on the page & visual studio detects your browser as connected.
Don't know whether this is bug in VS or something.