Configure appcmd to support utf8 - iis-7

I am using appcmd in order to list the websites by calling:
appcmd.exe list config -section:system.applicationHost/sites
As I have some web sites that have non-ascii characters in their name (in this case- Chinese), the result is that the Chinese chars are omitted from the web site name, as can be seen in the following pic:
I know that updating the "Language for non-Unicode programs" under "Regional and Language Options" to Chinese is a possibility but I want to run appcmd with support of utf8 from the first place.
Is it possible?
Is there a way to configure it?

An alternative use of the appcmd tool for fetching the required data can be to read the ApplicationHost.config file.
see: http://www.iis.net/learn/get-started/planning-your-iis-architecture/introduction-to-applicationhostconfig).

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Confused on what is the correct procedure on storing passwords in Web.config for Azure deployment

I've had a very frustrating experience on putting an MVC 5 app on Azure. I have been reading the following page: http://www.asp.net/identity/overview/features-api/best-practices-for-deploying-passwords-and-other-sensitive-data-to-aspnet-and-azure
But what I haven't managed to put in my head is the following:
Security Warning: Do not add your secrets .config file to your project or check it into source control. By default, Visual Studio sets the Build Action to Content, which means the file is deployed. For more information see Why don't all of the files in my project folder get deployed? Although you can use any extension for the secrets .config file, it's best to keep it .config, as config files are not served by IIS. Notice also that the AppSettingsSecrets.config file is two directory levels up from the web.config file, so it's completely out of the solution directory. By moving the file out of the solution directory, "git add *" won't add it to your repository.
And:
Security Warning: Unlike the AppSettingsSecrets.config file, the external connection strings file must be in the same directory as the root web.config file, so you'll have to take precautions to ensure you don't check it into your source repository.
The problem is the following: When I upload the Web.config file with the external files without being included I get hit by "The System cannot find the file specified", so for it to go away I must include the .config files defeating the purpose of Microsoft's post.
I really really really do not understand. I have added the connectionStrings and appSetting's keys in Azure's portal. What is the correct and secured way of putting my passwords and secrets online? What am I missing? Is it because I'm running in Debug mode?
According to this:
How can I secure passwords stored inside web.config?
There is nothing to worry about accessing the Web.config file...
But that just defies Microsoft's post.
Thanks.
I find the following technique to be the easiest way to do this.
Instead of putting the deployment values of these settings into the web.config, I keep the test values in there instead. I then put the deployment values into the Application Settings section of the Azure Website via the Azure Portal:
When the website runs, these settings will take precedence over what is in the web.config. This helps me avoid externalized files, allows me to keep sane development configuration that the team can share, and makes deployment very easy.
The best way is to set your secrets in the Connection Strings section of the portal. Any values set there will override values you specify in your web.config file.
This way they are only exposed to people who have admin access over the site itself. Having full access to the source won't even be enough to get the secret values.
More details here

Create custom file extension and assign registry setting

I'm missing something here, or this isn't possible...
My real goal is to eliminate the "do you want to open or save" message on excel files linked from a LOCAL INTRANET SITE ONLY. I was NOT able to limit this to the local intranet, and using regedit could only remove the message from every excel file downloaded from who knows where.
It was suggested that I create a new file extension, and do the same regedit and we'd just name our custom excel files with a different extension. Ok, trying that out, I created a new key called .sxls in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT which has two string values (Default) REG_SZ STER.XLS.8 and Content Type REG_SZ application/vnd.ms-excel. It would in all respects be an .xls file, but with a different extension. I then went into HKEY_CURRENT_USER->SOFTWARE->Microsoft->Windows->Shell->AttachementExecute->{002DF01etc} and added a binary STER.XLS.8
Not only was the "do you want to download or" message not suppressed, excel said filename.sxls is in a different format than specified by the file extension.
So, help me out... either to limit the registry setting in AttachmentExecute to 1) a new file type, or 2) just files downloaded from local intranet, or 3) eliminate through the asp.net web app.
Thanks, John

Why does IIS7 not accept a multiple level path in a virtual path - possible UI bug?

In IIS7 you can't create a virtual path like so:
\SubFolder1\SubFolder2
as a virtual path. We had this set-up in IIS6 ok, but IIS7 doesn't accept \ symbols in the alias field.
The only way I can do this is to use the AppCmd.exe for IIS7 configuration and set the virtual path on the command line. If it works on the command line, why not in the UI? Is this a bug?
This is not a bug. While the '\' character is valid for the path of a virtual directory it is not valid in the name of a virtual directory which is what the Alias field is for. The UI is for adding a virtaul directory in the selected location and is not designed to allow the creation of multiple levels of virtual directories at one time.
The command line confguration utility (appcmd.exe) allows almost absolute control over the actual configuration data and is not simply the same as the Management Console without a GUI. If you have an advanced configuration need that is not met in the console then appcmd is the right way to do it.

customising web.config based on domain name

Most of my websites include one LIVE (production) and two TEST environments which are accessible via three different domain names e.g.
www.mysite.com
test1.mysite.com
test2.mysite.com
Each of the above are IIS Websites which point to the same physical versioned folder when they are all running the same version of the website.
What I typically do when releasing a new version is to place the new version into a new physical folder e.g. /inetpub/wwwroot/mywebsite/v41/ and point one of the TEST sites to that version of the site and test it. Once passed, the LIVE (and other TEST) websites are also repointed to the new version (e.g. v41).
Now my problem is this. Each website has its own database (TESTs have a copy of LIVE which can be refreshed via a couple of SQL BACKUP/RESTORE commands) however, the three sites are all "looking" at the same web.config file and therefore the same Database Connection Strings (either a System.Data.SqlClient or System.Data.EntityClient provider).
Is there any way that I can configure web.config to provide different connectionStrings based on the domain name/IIS website of the incoming request?
Maybe a tag or an attribute that qualifies a given tag?
I've looked all over for a solution but not yet found one.
Thanks in advance,
BloodBaz
there are two ways to manage multiple environment Specific Web.config file....
using t4 template,below is the link for that
http://ilearnable.net/2010/08/02/t4-for-complex-configuration/
VS Configuration Manager and create new "LIVE", "test1", "test2" build configurations for your project,check out the link
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/09/21/tip-trick-automating-dev-qa-staging-and-production-web-config-settings-with-vs-2005.aspx
hope this helps..
why not split your config file up so connectionStrings.config is its own file. Then you can deploy everything and not overwrite that connectionString file.
where you normally would put the connectionString do this
<connectionStrings configSource="connectionStrings.config" />
Then create a file named connectionString.config
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<connectionStrings>
</connectionStrings>
Alternatively you can create another build option other than just release/debug. You can have web.config transforms that output a different config file depending on which one is selected.
I had a similar problem; I solved it by setting up all the database connection info in the same web config file, and then writing a handler that decides on the fly, based on the request and context, which environment it's in and uses that database.

Is it possible to modify web.config of existing site using MSDeploy?

Is it possible to modify (or just replace) web.config of existing site using MSDeploy?
It's possible to replace certain sections (specified with an xPath query or regular expression) of the web config file. Use the -declareParam en -setParam commandline switches for that.
Like so
msdeploy -verb:sync -source:apphostconfig="Default Web Site" -dest:package=ParameterPackage.zip -declareParam:name=param,kind=XmlFile,scope=web.config,match=//add/#value
or so:
msdeploy -verb:sync -source:package=ParameterPackage.zip -dest:auto -setParam:name=param,value=MyDefaultWebPage.htm
You can find more info here if you're using the command line.
If your working with importing and exporting packages in and from IIS you can create a parameters.xml file. Vishal Joshi has lots of good posts about how to use msdeploy (for example this)
Yes you can do this. I just posted a blog on this at http://sedodream.com/2012/02/14/HowToUpdateASingleFileUsingWebDeployMSDeploy.aspx but I'm also copying the content below for you.
The other day I saw a question posted on StackOverflow asking if it was possible to update web.config using MSDeploy. I actually used a technique where I updated a single file in one of my previous posts at How to take your web app offline during publishing but it wasn’t called out too much. In any case I’ll show you how you can update a single file (in this case web.config) using MSDeploy.
You can use the contentPath provider to facilitate updating a single file. Using contentPath you can sync either a single file or an entire folder. You can also use IIS app paths to resolve where the file/folder resides. For example if I have a web.config file in a local folder named “C:\Data\Personal\My Repo\sayed-samples\UpdateWebConfig” and I want to update my IIS site UpdateWebCfg running in the Default Web Site on my folder I would use the command shown below.
%msdeploy% -verb:sync -source:contentPath="C:\Data\Personal\My Repo\sayed-samples\UpdateWebConfig\web.config" -dest:contentPath="Default Web Site/UpdateWebCfg/web.config"
From the command above you can see that I set the source content path to the local file and the dest content path using the IIS path {SiteName}/{AppName}/{file-path}. In this case I am updating a site running in IIS on my local machine. In order to update one that is running on a remote machine you will have to add ComputerName and possibly some other values to the –dest argument.
You can view the latest sources for this sample at my github repo.

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