IIS - 403 Forbidden: Access is denied when accessing a folder published through IIS 7.0

Question

We published a folder through IIS 7.0 as below and put some files in it

https://www.example.net/mydocs

If we access the files as below through browser we are able to see it

https://www.example.net/mydocs/client.xml
https://www.example.net/mydocs/log.jpg

etc..

Now we need to write a pgm to download and upload files to this folder and we coded as below

WebClient webClient = new WebClient();
            string webAddress = null;
            try
            {
                webAddress = @"https://www.example.net/mydocs";
                webClient.UseDefaultCredentials = true;
                webClient.Credentials = CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;

                WebRequest serverRequest = WebRequest.Create(webAddress);
                WebResponse serverResponse;
                serverResponse = serverRequest.GetResponse();
                serverResponse.Close();

                webClient.UploadFile(webAddress + @"1.xml", "PUT", @"C:\d\1.xml");
                webClient.Dispose();
                webClient = null;
            }
            catch (Exception error)
            {
                MessageBox.Show(error.Message);
            }

But it throwing and error at serverResponse = serverRequest.GetResponse();

The error is The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden.

Also if we try to access

https://www.example.net/mydocs

through browser we are getting the error

403 - Forbidden: Access is denied. You do not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials that you supplied. when accessing the folder published through iis

Answer 1

You need to Allow Directory Browsing from IIS. Follow below steps to allow Directory Browsing.

• Open IIS .
• Select Your website from Left Pane.
• Double click Directory Browsing from Right Pane/Center Pane.
• In Right Pane under Actions Click Enable .

Answer 2

In my experience it ended up being missing windows features installed.

I can't exactly point out which features are missing as I got tired of it and installed most of them, but that for sure solved my problem (and enabling directory browsing did not).

Answer 3

You Need to Enable the Directory Browsing in IIS or else you can access only files by giving full path up to the file. Refer this link will show how