Since the introduction of the file system based web projects, the developers life has been greatly improved…  That is unless you have to do a demo, or have other reasons why you don’t want to run Visual Studio in the background.  So, your options are:

1. Convert it to an HTTP based web site and use IIS
2. Figure out the magic Visual Studio does to run it without IIS

As it turns out, option #2 is not that difficult.  Visual Studio simply uses WebDev.WebServer.exe process as a host and listener of your requests (the executable can be found in C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727 folder).

To start it, use the following command:

start /B WebDev.WebServer [/port:<port number>] /path:<physical path> [/vpath:<virtual path>]

For example:

start /B webdev.webserver.exe /port:4955 /path:"c:\Projects\YourWebSite" /vpath:/

That’s it…