<p>As most of you would know, if I drop a file named app_offline.htm in the root of an asp.net application, it takes the application offline <a href="http://asp-net-whidbey.blogspot.com/2006/04/aspnet-20-features-appofflinehtm.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">as detailed here</a>.</p>

<p>You would also know, that while this is great, IIS actually returns a 404 code when this is in process and Microsoft is not going to do anything about it <a href="https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=319986" rel="nofollow noreferrer">as mentioned here</a>.</p>

<p>Now, since Asp.Net in general is so extensible, I am thinking that shouldn't there be a way to over ride this status code to return a 503 instead? The problem is, I don't know where to start looking to make this change.</p>

<p>HELP!</p>

You can try turning it off in the web.config.
```
```
<httpRuntime enable = "False"/>
```
```