ADFS 2.0 Federation Server Configuration: “Existing Website Detected. Therefore, the website was not reinstalled”

In my case, i encountered this warning when i was in the process of setting up CRM 2011 IFD but it applies for all ADFS 2.0 related developments.

I’m sure most of us do some experiments and research before a complex setting to be made. In a similar manner, i was installing and uninstalling ADFS 2.0. Got this warning when i tried to reconfigure ADFS 2.0 Federation server.

And then the below screen,

The configuration still completes but when you wanted to be sure of why this is happening. It is imperative to find the root cause. The first thing you do is: you will have to make sure that the website directory still exists. You can check that by navigating to typically c:/inetpub to see if you have a folder exist even after uninstalling ADFS 2.0. If it is there, you can manually delete it.

And you may feel that’s all it to make it smooth the next time you install and configure ADFS 2.0 federation server. But in few circumstances it is not. There will be trails of ADFS left in our system, typically in IIS. To ensure a smooth installation next time, you may need to follow the below steps,

Open IIS – > Navigate to the website- > Select “View Applications”

Which will bring up the following screen and we need to select ADFS – > Right click and select “Remove”

Once that is done, in your IIS – > Navigate to Application pools – > Right click on “ADFSAppPool” and select “Remove”.

That’s it – Add done – Perform an “IISRESET” just to ensure the changes gets reflected and start re-installing ADFS 2.0 and configure ADFS 2.0 Federation Server. This time, you will not get the warning and the configuration will have no issues.

Hope this benefits someone who may run into similar issues.

Cheers,

Edwin