ASP.NET: Failed to access IIS metabase (IIS)

When installing everything on my new machine, came across a problem in IIS when publishing my projects there. I got the error:

Failed to access IIS metabase
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code

The error directs you to a Microsoft KB which isn't particularly helpful.

I had seen this error before when using SQL Server Reporting Services but the method I used last time works for SSRS, but not in this case. After a bit of Googling I found that this is a problem with the account permissions that ASP.NET runs under in IIS, as well as a method to solve it.

1. Gave permissions to the ASPNET account using "C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis –ga machinename\ASPNET".
2. Reset IIS (iisreset on command line) and that resolved the issue for ASP.NET 2.0.
3. We registered ASP.NET 1.1 with IIS as well using command "C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322\aspnet_regiis –i".
4. Reset IIS again.

That did the job for me. Some other people had to go to greater lengths such as uninstalling .NET and reinstalling it, but the above steps resolved the problem in my case.