<p>In IIS I can configure my custom error pages.<br>
For each HTTP Error code I can say where to go. Several codes have a number of "sub" codes available. For example 404 has a regular 404, 404;1, 404;2 and so on..</p>

<p>What are they for? When are they returned? Should I make custom pages for these errors? Can I somehow easely configure all code "families" to come to the same page?</p>

401 - Access denied. IIS defines several different 401 errors that indicate
a more specific cause of the error
. These specific error codes are displayed in the browser but are not displayed in the IIS log:
401.1 - Logon failed.
401.2 - Logon failed due to server configuration.
401.3 - Unauthorized due to ACL on resource.
401.4 - Authorization failed by filter.
401.5 - Authorization failed by ISAPI/CGI application.
401.7 – Access denied by URL authorization policy on the Web server (This error code is specific to IIS 6.0.)
Here is the
complete list
in the MSDN documentation for
IIS 5.0 and 6.0
and for
IIS 7.0, 7.5 and 8.0
.
If you want to show your visitors or users a nice custom message depending on these subcode, you could do it. But you needn't.