How do you set the startup page for debugging in an ASP.NET MVC application?

How do you start debugging the application at the application root? For example: http://localhost:49742/

I'm always getting a page which doesn't exist, such as: http://localhost:49742/Views/Home/About.aspx

Note that it would be OK to start at http://localhost:49742/Views/Home/About

Go to your project's properties and set the start page property.

1. Go to the project's Properties
2. Go to the Web tab
3. Select the Specific Page radio button
4. Type in the desired url in the Specific Page text box

While you can have a default page in the MVC project, the more conventional implementation for a default view would be to use a default controller, implememented in the global.asax, through the 'RegisterRoutes(...)' method. For instance if you wanted your Public\Home controller to be your default route/view, the code would be:

    public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
    {
        routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

        routes.MapRoute(
            "Default", // Route name
            "{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
            new { controller = "Public", action = "Home", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults
        );

    }

For this to be functional, you are required to have have a set Start Page in the project.

This works for me under Specific Page for MVC:

/Home/Index

Update: Currently, I just use a forward slash in the "Specific Page" textbox, and it takes me to the home page as defined in the routing:

/

Selecting a specific page from Project properties does not solve my problem.

In MVC 4 open App_Start/RouteConfig.cs

For example, if you want to change startup page to Login:

routes.MapRoute(
        "Default", // Route name
        "",        // URL with parameters
        new { controller = "Account", action = "Login"}  // Parameter defaults
    );

If you want to start at the "application root" as you describe right click on the top level Default.aspx page and choose set as start page. Hit F5 and you're done.

If you want to start at a different controller action see Mark's answer.