Prepare web.config for HTML5 and CSS3

HTML5 and CSS3 introduces some new file types that enables us to create even better websites. We are now able to embed video, audio and custom fonts natively to any web page. Some of these file types are relatively new and not supported by the IIS web server by default. It’s file types like .m4v, .webm and .woff.

When a request is made to the IIS for these unsupported file types, we are met with the following error message:

HTTP Error 404.3 - Not Found

The page you are requesting cannot be served because of the extension configuration. If the page is a script, add a handler. If the file should be downloaded, add a MIME map.

The problem is that the IIS doesn’t know how to serve these new files unless we tell it how. This can be easily done in the web.config’s <system.webServer> section by adding the following snippet:

<staticContent>
    <mimeMap fileExtension=".mp4" mimeType="video/mp4" />
    <mimeMap fileExtension=".m4v" mimeType="video/m4v" />
    <mimeMap fileExtension=".ogg" mimeType="video/ogg" />
    <mimeMap fileExtension=".ogv" mimeType="video/ogg" />
    <mimeMap fileExtension=".webm" mimeType="video/webm" />

    <mimeMap fileExtension=".oga" mimeType="audio/ogg" />
    <mimeMap fileExtension=".spx" mimeType="audio/ogg" />

    <mimeMap fileExtension=".svg" mimeType="image/svg+xml" />
    <mimeMap fileExtension=".svgz" mimeType="image/svg+xml" />

    <remove fileExtension=".eot" />
    <mimeMap fileExtension=".eot" mimeType="application/vnd.ms-fontobject" />
    <mimeMap fileExtension=".otf" mimeType="font/otf" />
    <mimeMap fileExtension=".woff" mimeType="font/x-woff" />
</staticContent>

The above snippet includes support for most video, audio and font file types used by HTML5 and CSS3.