During installation of the IIS the following error, rarely but sometimes occurs:

"Error WRITING ENCRYPTED DATA TO THE WEB SERVER'S CONFIGURATION DATABASE(metabase). 0x800900f=object already exists".

If results in no default IIS website in the IIS manager. Also, when you try to start the WWW pub service it does not start.

It has a retry option pressing that seems to complete the installation but the final dialog does not go away and the IIS installation is not valid either.

The following links point to a encryption based folder not having the right security permissions.

http://lists.evolt.org/archive/Week-of-Mon-20020722/119238.html

1.) Under Windows Services, make sure that the "Security Accounts Manager" service is enabled and started. If not, set it to Auto-Start and start it.

2.) Follow the steps in the Kb : http://support.microsoft.com/?id=271865. Also refer to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/278381 to correctly set the permissions. You can even refer to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q246459/

3.) If the prior step does not work, do.

>From http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/31227188/iis-50-w3svc-will-not-st.aspx

- uninstall IIS.
- Delete the metabase.bin file
- Delete the c:\winnt\system32\inetsrv folder - If you cannot delete this folder at least delete or rename all the dll files in this folder.

- Restart machine.
- Reinstall IIS