Creating a new website on IIS: Application vs. Virtual Directory. Whats the difference?

Question

When you create a new website on IIS, you get to choose between an \"Application\" and a \"Virtual Directory\". What is the difference between those two options?

Answer 1

From the point of view of a web developer:

A virtual directory is the IIS 5 (Windows 2000 and earlier) container for HTML content. A virtual directory can also be configured to allow the interpretation of Active Server Pages (ASP) scripts and/or the execution of Common Gateway Interface (CGI) applications. A virtual directory CANNOT host an ASP.Net web application.

The "application" container type was introduced with IIS 6 (Windows XP / Windows Server 2003 and later). It allows for hosting of ASP.Net web applications.