.NET 3.5 framework: Child nodes are not allowed

After installing the new .net framework (i need it because I’m creating my project in Visual Studio 2008) the website wouldn’t run. It gave following error:

”parse Error: Child nodes are not allowed”

This error occurs when you attempt to run an application using .NET framework 2.0 or 3.0 and your Microsoft IIS webserver defaults to an earlier version of the .NET framework.

In my case the .NET framework 3.5 was installed but it wasn’t there in IIS. I couldn’t change the .NET version on the properties-tab of my website in IIS.

How I solved it:

- Open IIS 6.0
- Go to “Web Server Extensions”
- Click on “Add a new web service extension”
- give it a name and select the web service extension by browsing to it’s location (”C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\framework\v3.5″)
- Enable “set extension to Allowed”

Thats it!