So about two days ago, I stop being able to run web sites in Visual Studio.

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I get this error:

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http://localhost:54147 : error : Error opening web http://localhost:54147. Unable to open the Web site 'http://localhost:54147'. You do not have permission to access the IIS configuration file. Opening and creating web sites on IIS requires running Visual Studio under an Administrator account.

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Now, I have done what it says, and run Visual Studio as an administrator (I am used to doing this as have a site running subdomains).

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I have also gone to

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C:\Users\[username]\Documents\IISExpress\config

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Clicked through the permissions prompt, but still problem remains.

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This happens in Visual Studio 2015, 2017.

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Yesterday, I gave up. I reset windows. Today i had a nice shiny new windows install. I put on SQL server, several versions, and installed Visual Studio 2019 and looked forward to it working. But same problem.

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My desktop machine continues to work fine on exactly same software (windows 10, vs 2015, 2017, etc.) and on exactly the same webs (I sync them via dropbox).

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Tearing my hair out. Any ideas? I thought blowing my laptop away and resetting windows was the nuclear option, but this bug seems to survive even this.

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And please don't post if you're just going to suggest I am not running as an admin, etc. Please read the steps I have taken before posting responses. There must be a solution, but it isn't the obvious one the error suggests, because I have tried it.