Are you encountering an “Object can’t be created” error or “Service Unavailable” error with your web applications when using a 64-bit OS and IIS6?

I was assisting a customer recently with what appeared to be a typical installation. He had a Windows Server 2003 (x64) machine, which was running IIS6. His classic ASP application was throwing an “Object can’t be created” error (ActiveX component can’t create object). This is a fairly common configuration error for customers running applications with 32-bit COM Objects on 64-bit operating systems. The typical resolution is to double check that the customer’s DLLs are registered properly in the registry. If that doesn’t fix things, we make sure that IIS6 is running in 32-bit compatibility mode:

cd %systemdrive%\Inetpub\AdminScripts
cscript.exe adsutil.vbs set W3SVC/AppPools/Enable32BitAppOnWin64 1

Unfortunately, after changing these settings his entire site was throwing a “Service Unavailable” error message.
Continue reading One Solution for a “Service Unavailable” Error Message in IIS6 →