Q: I installed the System Center Service Manager (SCSM) Self-Service Portal onto my SCSM Management Server. I get an error and see that the SM_AppPool has errors and has been disabled. What's wrong?

A: When SCSM is installed, you have to specify an account that will host the management service that gets given specific permissions. In addition to specifying this account during installation, you should actually be logged on as the account during installation. If, like me, you were actually logged on as Administrator and then installed SCSM and the portal, you need to manually grant the service manager service account permissions over the application pools. Navigate to the .NET Framework folder, as shown below, and then run the command shown using your domain and service account name.

C:WindowsMicrosoft.NETFrameworkv2.0.50727>aspnet_regiis.exe -ga 

For example,

C:WindowsMicrosoft.NETFrameworkv2.0.50727>aspnet_regiis.exe -ga savdemosvcmgrsvc