Configure the application pool

1 Open the application pool

In the Internet Information Server (IIS) Manager locate the application pool used by your website.

Right-click the application pool and choose Basic Settings.

IIS Manager with the application pool used by the website selected. Its right-click menu is open and Basic Settings is highlighted. — Right-click the application pool and choose **Basic Settings...**.

Change the .NET Framework version to .NET Framework v4.0.

Basic Settings dialog of the application pool with the .NET framework version set to v4.0. — In **Basic Settings**, set the .NET framework version to **v4.0**.

Locate the application pool once again. Right-click the application pool and this time, choose Advanced Settings.

Right-click menu of the application pool with Advanced Settings highlighted. — Right-click the application pool and choose **Advanced Settings...**.

2 Set the custom account

Locate the Identity setting in the Process Model group and change ApplicationPoolIdentity.

Advanced Settings of the application pool. Under Process Model the Identity row shows ApplicationPoolIdentity and has a button to change it. — The **Identity** row under **Process Model** shows **ApplicationPoolIdentity**. Click the button at the end of the row to change it.

Choose Custom account and click Set.

Application Pool Identity dialog with the Custom account option selected and the Set button. — Choose **Custom account**, then click **Set**.

Enter the credentials of the service account created in section 1 and click OK. The examples in this guide use CONTOSO\svc-swc.

Set Credentials dialog with the User name, Password and Confirm password boxes. The user name is masked in this picture. — Enter the **User name**, **Password** and **Confirm password** of the service account. The user name in this picture is masked; use the account you created in section 1.

Click OK once more.

Application Pool Identity dialog with the custom account set, and the OK button. — Click OK to save the identity of the application pool.

3 Enter the account in Settings

SoftwareCentral does not read the identity from IIS. Enter the same account in SoftwareCentral, on Settings › General Settings › Server Configuration.

Setting	What to enter
Application Pool Username	The same account as the custom account in IIS, in the form DOMAIN\name. The field is required; SoftwareCentral shows * Required beside it when it is empty.
Application Pool Password	The password of that account. When you save, SoftwareCentral checks the password against the account. If it is wrong, it shows Wrong Password and does not save the page.

The password is stored in the SoftwareCentral database. Settings are not kept in the Web.config file.

Use the same name in both places SoftwareCentral compares Application Pool Username with the accounts it uses. If the name differs from the account IIS runs as, SoftwareCentral does not treat the website's account as the application pool account.

4 What the account is used for

Use	When it applies
Connecting to SCCM	When no other account is entered for the SCCM server (SCCM Server Username and SCCM Server Password are empty) and the SCCM domain is trusted, SoftwareCentral connects to SCCM with the application pool account.
Active Directory actions	Where the application pool account is one of the accounts SoftwareCentral can use for Active Directory work, the call runs under the identity that IIS gives the website.

For an untrusted domain, SoftwareCentral uses the service account entered for that domain. See Configuring SoftwareCentral with an untrusted domain.

5 Best practice

Use one dedicated service account for the application pool and enter the same name under Application Pool Username. The two must match, or SoftwareCentral does not recognise the account as its own.
Use a service account, not a personal account, so the website keeps working when people change jobs. A group managed service account, as in the example CONTOSO\svc-swc$, avoids storing a password that expires.
Set the account before the first-time configuration. The server configuration page requires the application pool user name, so it cannot be saved empty.
Change the password in three places. When the password changes in Active Directory, update the Identity in IIS Manager and Application Pool Password in Settings, then restart the website.

6 Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause	What to do
"Wrong Password" beside Application Pool Password when you click Save Settings.	The password does not match the account in Application Pool Username.	Enter the password of that account and save again. Nothing on the page is saved until the password is correct.
"* Required" beside Application Pool Username.	The field is empty.	Enter the account, in the same form as in IIS (DOMAIN\name), and save again.