MapGuide tidbits: Windows 10 Fall Creators Update

In case anyone else might encounter this problem.

I had a copy of MapGuide Open Source 3.1 installed on my laptop running Windows 10. Recently it was upgraded to the Fall Creator's update and suddenly, the web tier (which was an IIS/.net configuration) of this installation stopped working.

The non-functional web tier would manifest as HTTP 503 errors when I try to connect with MapGuide Maestro

If you go into IIS manager and try to recycle the associated Application Pool, you may see an error like this

If we take a look at the Windows Event Viewer, we see log entries like this

It just so happens if we search online for "\\?\", we find a similar issue but relating to a completely different product (Team Foundation Server). Still, that link gives us a few useful leads.

Per that link, it appears to be some symlink issue regarding the Application Pool. So to verify this issue also applies to us, if we check C:\inetpub\temp\appPools we indeed see a symlink for our Application Pool name.

If we try to open it, windows throws an error

So with this confirmation of a broken symlink, we can fix the issue by following the prescription in that linked issue:

1. Delete the broken symlink in question under C:\inetpub\temp\appPools
2. Restart IIS and the Application Pool in question.

After this, I can connect to the Web Tier again with Maestro confirming the resolution of the issue.