Error - Unable to access the IIS metabase

I think we encountered a similar problem at work. For us, the solution was to go into Control Panel -> Programs and Features -> Turn Windows Features on or off... inside that, we had to select Internet Information Services -> Web Management Tools -> IIS 6 Management Compatibility -> IIS Metabase and IIS 6 configuration compatibility.

Give that a try and let me know if it helps!

Note: We're running IIS 7.5 on Windows 7 using both Visual Studio 2005 and 2010 and doing stuff with super-old-school WebServices (.asmx)...

I resolved this issue by granting IIS AppPool identity permissions to the %systemroot%\inetsrv\config

On Windows 8 Pro:

%systemroot%\inetsrv\config

On Windows 7 and 8.1 and 10

%systemroot%\System32\inetsrv\config 

(Where %systemroot% is usually C:\Windows)

Navigate to the appropriate location above in Windows Explorer. You will be blocked access with a popup which says:

"You don't have access to this folder - Click continue to permanently get access to this folder"

Click 'continue' for this folder, and with the Export folder underneath. I changed the shortcut back to "Run as me" (a member of the domain and local administrators ) and was able to open and deploy the solution.

I think you are not running visual studio with administrator permissions. Look that:

http://bloggingabout.net/blogs/rick/archive/2012/10/04/unable-to-access-the-iis-metabase.aspx

To quote

The solution to this is simple: start your Visual Studio with "Run as Administrator". You can do this by right clicking the shortcut and selecting "Run as Administrator".