Who would’ve guessed. I recently rebuilt my work laptop. I installed .NET 2.0 framework, but not 1.1. When I went to try to browse to a website built on 2.0 on my local machine, I got access denied errors. I did some searching and figured it was due to the ASPNET account not having permissions to the Framework folders, so I went to add it. Turns out the ASPNET user isn’t there! I did a quick google search and it hinted at installing .NET 1.1 to get the ASPNET account created, so I downoaded it and installed it. I also then ran regiis -u and -i on both frameworks, and problem solved.
I didn’t test this as I was in a hurry to get it fixed so it may have been due to an install problem on 2.0 that the -u and -i fixed. I don’t know. Have to check that later.