Jean-Pierre Paradis's Blog: How to create a new site collection under the root of a SharePoint Service 3.0 site

Did you ever try to create a new site collection in SharePoint Service 3.0 (WSS) with a URL like http://myserver.com/newsite ?

Well, if you try then you already know SharePoint Central Administration site only allow you to create a site collection under http://myserver.com/sites (or any other defined managed paths with wildcard inclusion)

Here's a trick to create a new collection under the root :

1. Delete the managed path for (root) Explicit inclusion (Central Administration > Application Management > Define Managed Paths)
2. Add a new managed path for / with Wildcard inclusion (Central Administration > Application Management > Define Managed Paths). At that point your root site (http://myserver.com/ will not be accessible, don't worry we will make it work again.
3. Create a new site collection with the URL http://myserver.com/newsite (Central Administration > Application Management > Create Site Collection) 
4. Delete the managed path for (root) Wildcard inclusion (Central Administration > Application Management > Define Managed Paths)
5. Add a new managed path for / with Explicit inclusion (Central Administration > Application Management > Define Managed Paths). By the way, your root site (http://myserver.com/ is working again.
6. Add a new managed path for /newsite with Explicit inclusion (Central Administration > Application Management > Define Managed Paths).
7. Voila !