What config file does appcmd.exe update?

Question

When running appcmd.exe commands from the command prompt, is there a config file getting updated somewhere? If so, where is that file?

For example, I ran the following:

appcmd.exe set config "MyWebsite" -section:system.webServer/modules -runManagedModulesForWebDavRequests:true

It's great that running the command solved my problem, I just don't know what actually changed? Is this a setting I can see from within IIS or was there a config file somewhere that changed? I thought I'd see the ApplicationHost.config file get updated, but that wasn't the case.

Answer 1

If you want to track what changed and when, you may want to turn on Configuration Auditing as described in IIS 7.5 – How to enable IIS Configuration Auditing? rather than looking for changes to files.

Also, remember that some setting changes, particularly where they refer to a specific site, will occur in the web.config file. See Modules <modules> for documentation that relates to the command line you gave as your example.

Answer 2

I believe it configures the IIS Metabase. There used to be a metabase.xml in the past but I don't know about IIS7.