First of all, let’s get the overview of both.
- Physical path
This is the actual path the file is located by IIS.
- Virtual path
This is the logical path to access the file which is pointed to from outside of the IIS application folder.
Let’s display this image from Hard-drive ‘E:’ using a virtual directory in IIS default web site.
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Add Virtual Directory
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Here, we need to provide an alias for the physical path.
Physical Path - E:\Files
Virtual Path - http://localhost/Files/
File Name - image_60140ec0-ce46-4dbf-a14f-4210eab7f42c.png
Full Path - http://localhost/Files/image_60140ec0-ce46-4dbf-a14f-4210eab7f42c.png
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Let’s enable the Directory Browsing.
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By default, this is disabled for security reasons.
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Here, we can see the files of the folder that is in E Drive
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Click on the file name. It will load the file which is in the outer part of IIS application folder.
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Thanks, hope this will help.