Q:

SqlMembershipProvider.ApplicationName property

Q1

To configure membership provider, you also have to add  section to your web.config file. One of the properties of SqlMembershipProvider  is also applicationName. If you don’t specify this attribute, then membership API will associate objects in database to the root application with the “/” name.

A) what is meant by root application? 
For example, if I create new website inside folder named Website1, and if I don’t specify applicationName attribute, then objects will be associated with a name “/Website1”. Is folder Website1 what about quote describes as root application? 

B) I assume “/” represents some kind of root directory, but which one?

Q2

If you don’t specify an application-
  Name property in the membership configuration, the API (and therefore any administration
  tool such as WAT) associates objects to the root application with the “/” name.

What exactly does the above quote mean by API associating objects to the root application? Simply that API classes will tell membership provider to associate objects in DB with the name "/ + DirectoryWhere__appIsSaved"? 

thanx

A:

In IIS the root application is always the website (unless you remove the application settings, in which case it will be whichever is the outermost directory configured as an application.)  Basically:
Inetpub
   >Website Folder (typically, the root application)
      >Folder Name
      >Application  (could be the root app, if you removed the one above.)
         >Sub Directory
         >Sub Application

