IIS account environment

Question

IIS 7.0+ uses a concept of so-called virtual accounts to identify application pools (IIS AppPool\apppoolname). Do those accounts have profiles and can be local environment variables set for them? How?

Answer 1

The very bottom of this blog post says the virtual accounts cant be managed, they just don't appear in user searches within windows so it sounds like its possible:

http://weblogs.asp.net/owscott/managed-service-accounts-msa-and-virtual-accounts

*IIS and Virtual Accounts For IIS and Virtual Accounts, the user is called “IIS AppPool{apppoolname}”. For example, “IIS AppPool\DefaultAppPool”. Note that Virtual Accounts can’t be found with the Windows Select Users or Groups tool, but if you type in the name specifically, it can be managed there.*

Alternatelively, You could create a local user account on the server and set the app pool to run as that account.

With regards to editing Environment variables for another user, this post says you can do it in the registry.

https://serverfault.com/questions/397966/windows-how-to-set-environment-variable-for-another-user

Answer 2

Yes, those accounts have their own profiles and you can set environment variables specifically for each account.

Just use a server-side page to set the variable and you can then use it.

I have a PowerShell script to demonstrate that this works in an answer over on ServerFault.

In the advanced settings for the application pool, make sure that Load User Profile is True but this is the default.