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How to Rename Virtual Path in IIS

Renaming virtual directories in Internet Information Services (IIS) 7 is a difficult task. Especially when we need to update our application’s structure without recreating all settings.

Fortunately, there is a handy method using built-in administration commands called “appcmd” that can help us with this.

Renaming Virtual Directories in IIS7

First, we have to open a command prompt and run this command to view all our virtual:

C:> %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd list vdir

This command will display a list of all virtual directories with their physical paths.

Suppose we want to rename “/Images” to “/OldImages” and “/Data/Config” to “/Data/OldConfig”.

Here are the example commands:


C:> %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd set vdir "Default Web Site/OldApplicationName/Images" -path:/OldImages
C:> %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd set vdir "Default Web Site/OldApplicationName/Data/Config" -path:/Data/OldConfig


Alternatively, we can get the same job done via the CMD Prompt with administrative privileges:

cd C:\Windows\SysWOW64\inetsrv\
appcmd set site ExistingSiteName -name:NewSiteName


We can rename a Virtual Directory as seen here:

appcmd set VDIR “Default Web Site/oldVDirName” -path:/newVDirName


Additionally, if we have applications in the virtual directory, you’ll need to adjust them too:

appcmd set APP “Default Web Site/oldVDirName/MyApplication” -path:/newVDirName/MyApplication


Furthermore, we can make sure everything is in order with this command:

appcmd list VDIR

In some cases, we cna only delete the virtual directory and recreate it with the desired settings. However, this can be done via the built-in “appcmd.exe” tool.

For instance, if we want to change our virtual directory “Images” within our application “OldApplicationName”, we can use this command:

%systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd set vdir "Default Web Site/OldApplicationName/Images" -path:/OldImages

If we want to rename the application, we have to use “set app” instead of “set vdir”:
appcmd set app "Default Web Site/OriginalSite" -path:/RenamedSite

As seen above, we can easily rename virtual directories within our IIS environment.

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Conclusion

In brief, our Support Experts demonstrated how to rename a virtual path in IIS.