How To Change The Virtual Directory Name From _Layouts To A Custom Value For Sharepoint Application Pages



TODO:

Have you ever wanted to change the location of your Application Pages from _Layouts to a directory that is more meaningful to your application?

 

SOLUTIONS:

1.  Open IIS Manager and go to your Sharepoint site.

2.  Create a new virtual directory at the same level as _layouts  (for example 'MyDirectoryName')

3.  Point the new virtual directory to the same physical path as your _layouts virtual directory. (C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\template\layouts)

4.  Now open your application page, changing _layouts to MyDirectoryName.

5.  Now you have a more meaningful URL to use for your application pages.

 

NOTES:

What is nice about this solution, is that you do not need to do anything special during deployment.