Update the web.config file to move an ASP.NET 2.0 Site to ASP.NET 3.5

The forthcoming renovation of my personal Web site requires LINQ support and therefore I need ASP.NET 3.5. My hoster, ServerIntellect (highly recommended) announced that it had upgraded the web servers so I thought everything was in place. To confirm that ASP.NET 3.5 was working, I posted a quick test page that, you guessed it, refused to compile even though it ran fine on my development machine.

Here's the error: "Compiler Error Message: BC30205: End of statement expected."

To make a long story short, it turns out that there's a lot of new stuff you must have in the web.config file to support ASP.NET 3.5.

I ended up renaming the existing web.config, adding a new 3.5 version to the project, and copying it up. Sure enough, the strange errors went away.

For more on the new web.config, check out Scott Mitchell's article, Dissecting ASP.NET Version 3.5's Web.config File.