Images not shown when publishing MVC application to virtual directory inside default web-site

I am developing an application using ASP.NET MVC 1 and VS2008. When I deploy it to the default web-site in my IIS6 on WinXP, all images are shown correctly, path to any given image is localhost/Content/ImagesUI/[image].[ext]

When I deploy it to the virtual directory, created inside the same site, any image request returns IIS standard 404 error page, while the path is localhost/[DirectoryName]/Content/ImagesUI/[image].[ext] - that seems to be correct, true?

I am mapping .* to c:\windows\microsoft.net\framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_isapi.dll in both site and directory configurations. When this mapping is removed, images are shown correctly. However, all other URLs do not work, of course.

When I am trying to open an image in browser using the URL to it, aspnet_wp.exe process is not even started (I restarted IIS to test it) - I merely get 404 or the image, depending on the presence of * mapping. Thus, I suppose it has nothing to do neither with routes registered for MVC, nor with ASP.

The solution that I found is 开发者_如何学Cto make Content folder a virtual directory and remove * mapping from its configuration. While that's OK to some extent, I want a better solution, which will explain and eliminate the cause of the problem, not just workaround it.

Thanks for your help!

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Hah! It's localized to having Virtual Directory name containing '.' in it. I removed the period, it works! I will certainly go on working without the period, but is there any explanation for that?