As I was setting up my development environment on a new, fresh Windows 10 install, I ran into a problem that I'd hit before but couldn't remember how I'd fixed it.

In an effort to overcome the no-really-I'll-remember-what-I-did-to-fix-it-this-time problem, I figured I would document it here and potentially help someone else along the way.

I installed a clean Sitecore 8.1 instance, but when I hit the login page, I got this:

Logging in still worked, but the launchpad looked like this:

Double and triple-checked permissions on the Website folder, but nothing...  I knew I had run into this problem before, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember what I'd done to fix it.

Then, I came across this post by John West and suddenly - surprise, surprise - I remembered what fixed it last time!  Because this was a fresh Windows installation, I hadn't enabled Static Content for IIS yet.

To enable Static Content in IIS, pull up the "Turn Windows Features on or off" dialog.  In Windows 10, you can find it by opening the start menu and typing "windows features":

In Windows 8 you can find it in the Control Panel I think.

Under Internet Information Services\World Wide Web Services\Common HTTP Features, you'll find the Status Content feature.  Select that checkbox and click OK.

Voila!  Problem solved.

This post was really meant more for my benefit, but hopefully someone else might find it useful as well.

Happy Sitecore trails, my friends!