SOFTware is HARD

Put in a static file named app_offline.htm in the root of the site. Afterwhich, all requests for that site will be served from this file. Technically, what happens is that the entire application domain will be stopped and unloaded, all without performing an IIS reset. Note the following caveats: Any error in the Web.Config may result in the app_offline.htm page not showing up! The file (app_offline.htm) must be of at least 512 bytes for it to take effect for IE browser. Otherwise, IE would display a “Friendly Error" message by default. The effect of this file is that the server will serve out a HTTP response bearing this header: HTTP/1.1 503 Service Unavailable

The newer Internet Explorer comes with the F12 Developer Tools wherein you find the Browser Mode and the Document Mode. Difference between the Browser Mode and the Document Mode Document Mode is something that the web server can control. By specifying the HTTP header, the HTML meta-tags, or the DocType declaration, the Document Mode changes accordingly. See my earlier article . However, the Browser Mode cannot be changed by the server. What really happens when IE Compatibility View is activated? when IE Compatibility View is activated, the HTTP user-agent header is changed to that of IE7. The user-agent sent by the browsers follows: IE Browser Mode User-Agent IE10 Mozilla/ 5.0 (compatible; MSIE 10.0 ; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/6.0) IE9 Mozilla/ 5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0 ; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/5.0) IE8 Mozilla/ 4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0 ; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/4.0) IE7 Mozilla/ 4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0 ; Windows NT 6.1) IE10 WinPhone Mozilla/ 5.0 (comp