I was trying to fix an error on windows XP SP2 where I have installed .net framework 2.0 first and then IIS 5.1.

The web request was throwing an unhandled exception

System.Web.Hosting.HostingEnvironmentException: Failed to access IIS metabase.



To solve this error, I executed following command on Visual Studio 2005 command prompt:

aspnet_regiis.exe -i

And it works !!!!