So I was downloading the latest version of Anthem.NET to use for a Visual Studio 2003 project. I downloaded the zip, extracted, made the virtual directory, but kept getting weird security errors like

“The project location is not fully trusted by the .NET runtime. This is usually because it is either a network share or mapped to a network share not on the local machine. If the output path is under the project location, your code will not execute as fully trusted and you may receive unexpected security exceptions.”

and Visual Studio saying I can’t debug the application. When I tried going to the local site in IE (localhost/Anthem-Examples-2003) I’d get

“Server cannot access application directory ‘C:Documents and SettingsBenMy DocumentsVisual Studio ProjectsanthemAnthem-Examples-2003’. The directory does not exist or is not accessible because of security settings.”

It always worked flawlessly before. So, after some dorking and searching around, I finally got it working, here’s how I did it…

• After downloading the zip file, I right clicked it and clicked “Unblock” (some new XP SP2 security thing). Then I extracted it. That resolved the first “project location not trusted” issue.
• I then went to Control Panel->Admin Tools->.NET 1.1. Security Wizards, and gave full trust to the Intranet Zone.
• I then disabled simple file sharing (Control Panel->Folder Options->View tab->Uncheck simple file sharing). This allowed me to access the “Security” tab on folders.
• I then went to the folder containing the files that I extracted from the zip file. I right-clicked the folder, went to the (newly available) Security tab, and gave the Users group (of which the ASPNET account is part) standard (read/view/execute) access to that directory.

And now it works. I think a recent Windows security update is probably to blame. But, now we’re back in action.