IIS 7 Tip # 3 You can now load the user profile of the application pool identity

IIS 6.0 does not load the user profile of the application pool identity. But with IIS 7.0 you now have a choice to load the profile if needed. This feature is disabled by default on Windows 2008.

loadUserProfile

 <applicationPools>
    <add name="DefaultAppPool">
        <processModel identityType="NetworkService" loadUserProfile="true" idleTimeout="00:05:00" />
    </add>
</applicationPools> 

If you change this to True the profile of your Application Pool is loaded and is available for your application.

You can use this to isolate your applications even further. For example when this option is set to False ( the profile is not loaded ) your application will use the c:\windows\temp folder as its temporary directory. If you have other application pools even they will use the same c:\windows\temp folder. If you set the option to load the user profile the temporary directory will be now change to use the profile’s temporary folder C:\Users\apppooluserid\AppData\Local\Temp.

If the profile is loaded you also have access to all the custom environment variables for that user.

Here’s a question what do you think will the temporary folder be when the Application Pool identity is set to Network Service and Load User Profile is set to True ?

It is not C:\Users\NetworkService\AppData\Local\Temp. but C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\NetworkService\AppData\Local\Temp

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