This web site has been configured to disallow editing with SharePoint Designer. [Resolved]

Problem Statement:

While opening a SharePoint Site in SharePoint Designer, I was getting an error like "This web site has been configured to disallow editing with SharePoint Designer. Contact your web site administrator for more information".

Resolution:

To open specific site in SharePoint Designer, we need to verify the configuration at 3 levels:

1. Web Application
2. Site Collection
3. Site 

Let's verify the configuration at all 3 levels and update the configuration to allow specific site to be opened from SharePoint Designer.

1. Web Application Level:

• Open Central Administration.
• Navigate to Application Management -> Manage web applications.
• Select specific web application for which this issue is appearing.
• Click General Settings -> SharePoint Designer.

• "Enable SharePoint Designer" option must be selected in newly opened window. If this is unchecked, please check this option and click "OK".

2. Site Collection Level:

• Open SharePoint Site in browser for which this issue is appearing. If you are getting this issue for any sub-site, please open root level site in the browser.
• Navigate to "Site Settings".
• Click "SharePoint Designer Settings" under "Site Collection Administration" section. (User performing this action must have "Site Collection Administrator" rights).
• "Enable SharePoint Designer" option must be selected. If this is unchecked, please check this option and click "OK".

3. Site Level:

• Login to SharePoint Server and open SharePoint Management Shell with Farm Administrator access rights.
• Execute following PowerShell:

   $web = Get-SPWeb <http://name.domain.com/sites/sitename/sub-site>    
   $web.AllProperties  
  



• You will notice that the vti_disablewebdesignfeatures2 contains a value of wdfopensite.
• To resolve the issue, enter the following command in the same PowerShell window:

   $web.AllProperties.Remove("vti_disablewebdesignfeatures2")  
   $web.Update()  
  

Conclusion:

This way, we can verify if specific site is allowed to open in SharePoint Designer. If site is not allowed to open in SharePoint Designer, we can also update the configuration with steps mentioned above for Web Application Level, Site Collection Level as well as Site Level.

If you have any questions you can reach out our SharePoint Consulting team here.