Note: This post is contributed by Matthew Seng. He is one of my colleagues and we are working in same project together.

Error Message

It is an error to use a section registered as allowDefinition=‘MachineToApplication’ beyond application level. This error can be caused by a virtual directory not being configured as an application in IIS.

Steps to replicate the issue

1. Create a new ASP.NET MVC 4 project in Visual Studio 2012
2. Set true to MvcBuildViews in csproj (<MvcBuildViews>true</MvcBuildViews>)
3. Publish the project. (Observe: it will work fine.)
4. Publish it again (Observe: You will see the error message and you won’t be able to publish the project anymore)

Temporary solution:

• Delete obj folder from your MVC project.

Permanent solution:

• Delete obj folder from your MVC project.
• Add the following below the MvcBuildViews property:<BaseIntermediateOutputPath>..\obj</BaseIntermediateOutputPath>

Root cause:

MvcBuildViews property (This is to allow view errors to be shown when building solution) set to true in project file and multiple web.config confuses compiler. Learn more at:

• The Aspnet Compiler Build Task in Visual Studio 2010 ASP.Net MVC 2 Projects
• MVCBuildViews not working correctly