I'm in the process of testing the encryption method of using aspnet_setreg in .net 1.1 to establish a encrypted connection string.  To read the registry you have to give ASPNET user read access to that specific registry or a security error occurs.

 The testing is now on a DEV server that is Windows 2003 using 6.0 IIS.  From the following reading instead of using ASPNET user I should have to use NETWORK SERVICE to give read access to the registry. Here is the link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/329290

 I haven't had the chance to test using this name because we dont have access to the DEV server, the server people have to test if for us.  But has anyone had experience with this and instead used NETWORK Service instead of ASPNET user to read a registry or something?

Hi ds12will,

The testing is now on a DEV server that is Windows 2003 using 6.0 IIS.

The account who runs the ASP.NET application is determined by the Operation System. Since you're testing your application on Windows 2003, it'll run under the Network Service account. You have to grant it the permissions to access the registry. The Windows XP is using ASPNET account. If you want to test it, you can run your application in a Windows XP machine.

Thanks.