Why is MVC 4 Project missing Project Properties Windows Authentication and Anonymous Authentication

Question

When I view the properties (F4) of my MVC 4 project I cannot see the typical properties for setting up windows authentication. I believe they used to show, but now they don't. If I start a new MVC project these properties exist. How can I make them available again?

Answer 1

OK, so I will try to answer my own question....

An MVC project has two properties sheets. One can be seen by right-clicking the project and selecting the context menu item 'Properties'. This property sheet is big and grey and takes up the window normally used for viewing code. I will call this ' SheetA '.

Another property sheet is seen when selecting the project in the solution, then strike the F4 key on the keyboard. This is a typical property sheet - looks like a thin spreadsheet with a white background and cells with grey borders, typically a tab near the solution explorer. I will call this ' SheetB '.

Looking at 'SheetA', if the user navigates to the tab on the left called 'Web' and selects server 'IIS Express', then the option to define Anonymous Authentication is visible on 'SheetB'.

If a user instead selects 'External Host' on 'SheetA', then Anonymous Authentication is no longer visible on 'SheetB'.

This is probably because the authentication is now part of the server configuration not the local environment.

I dislike the idea that choices affect the visibility of properties. I would rather it affect the enabled property of the properties so at least I know I am not going crazy - "I saw the entry right here a while ago and now its gone!!!"