IIS does not want to start after change of IP

The IIS 6.0 installed at Windows 2003 Small Business Server refused to start. All web sites reported following error:

The format of the specified network name is invalid

Additionally in System event log following errors were logged:

EventID 1004 from W3SVC: Cannot register the URL prefix …. for site …. The site has been deactivated.

and

Event ID 1005 from HTTP: Unable to bind to the underlying transport for …. The IP Listen-Only list may contain a reference to an interface which may not exist on this machine.

I checked if IIS websites were configured to listen on old IP address only… but no… they were set to “All unassigned”.

Also I checked if nothing blocks ports 80 and 443 when IIS is stopped….

After some research I found this Microsoft TechNet page: Configuring the IP Inclusion List (IIS 6.0) which mentiones both events and refers to “httpcfg” utility which is used for configuration of HTTP protocol bindings.

Unfortunatelly I was working at remote desktop without access to installation CD to install Windows Support Tools containing “httpcfg”. But the solution was quite simple…

What I did to fix:

1. Opened the Registry Editor
2. Navigated to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\HTTP\Parameters”
3. At “ListenOnlyList” registry value there was a reference to old IP address.
4. Changed the old IP address to new one in “ListenOnlyList” value.
5. Restarted HTTP service (“net stop http / net start http”)
6. Restarted IIS service (“net stop w3svc / net start w3svc”)

And it works now…