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How do I run an already existing asp.net mvc application om my local server

I am front-end developer trying to brush up the front-end of an existing asp.net mvc application. So I have never used asp before but I thought I would try running it locally on my machine then get to work on the css part of the web application.
Previously I have tried running IIS server locally but in vain, is there a better way to run this project? Sorry I am not allowed to share the repo from where I have cloned the project.
I am using Visual Studio code running on a Windows 10 machine.

I would suggest using Visual Studio. It has its own IIS Express so you can run app locally and open it in any browser and you can also edit all HTML and CSS files.

The Best way to use latest Visual Studio and import your project into it (File->Open-Project/Solution) and run the application in it in debug mode. You can put break point to go through the code and add new codes and even test your application. It is very easy indeed. It has all the utilities for a .NET MVC application.

Open IIS, go to Under Default Web site.
right click and add select Add Application
give alias name and select the physical path of your source code
click Ok
if you get database access Authorization failed.
Open SQL Express Management Studio as an “Administrator” and navigate to Security > Logins > NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Right click on “NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM” and select Properties. Select “Server Roles” from the left panel and make sure that “public” and “sysadmin” are checked.
Your application will be added under Default Web Site
from there you can browse.
You can have a look at very good article,
how to deploy ASP.NET MVC application on IIS

Is it possible to persist session data on IIS Express cross different web projects in Visual Studio

We have an existing ASP.NET Web Forms application which contains many different Visual Studio web projects. All web projects were configured to run under same localhost root path (e.g. http://localhost:12345/main/projectspecificname). We use state server to keep the session data and cookieless is set to false.
This approach worked OK when using VS2012 and ASP.NET Development Server. However when we tried to run same application from VS2015 + IIS Express we found it cannot keep session data when redirects happen between different web projects. For example, when calls Response.Redirect("project2/index.aspx") from project1/login.aspx, from Page_Load event in project2/index.aspx I see the session variable lost all the data carried on it(i.e. Session.Count == 0). Same debug procedure against ASP.NET Development Server returns a count greater than 0. Again, for IIS Express, all different projects were configured to use project URL like http://localhost:12345/main/projectspecificname.
I have searched a bit and found this SO post IIS Express doesn't keep session data which mentioned a solution as to disable Browser Link in VS, but that doesn't work for my case. I am just wondering whether we missed some settings or this approach won't work for IIS Express. Any help is appreciated.

I found a solution to this problem. Looks like IIS Express treated these projects as different web applications so session initialized every time it tried to connect to another project.
By default Visual Studio creates an <application> node holding information like virtual path, application pool and physical path under <site> section in applicationhost.config for each web project. Remove <application> nodes for the web projects you don't want to run as a separate web application will make them run under same web site as per their physical path indicate.Therefore, session data can be correctly maintained between pages from different projects as they are considered in the same application now.

how to host asp.net app locally

I have a ASP.NET website, developed by a freelancer. After developing the website, he directly uploaded the website to my domain. Now, how can I host that website locally on my computer?
I dont have any experience in ASP.NET, however I do know HTML5 and CSS3. Looking at the files, I noticed they are all .cshtml files.
Any help would be great. I have the login credentials of Plesk.
Thanks in advance

You need to use IIS.
To do this, assuming you are on Windows, you need to enable it under the 'Windows Features' setting screen as below:
Check the 'World Wide Web Services' option, and also 'IIS Management Console' under the 'Web Management Tools' section.
After it installs, you will have a new program in your start menu, called 'Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager'.
This is where you setup and configure any local websites. There will already be a default website set up, which you can use, or you can create a new one by right clicking on 'Sites' in the tree on the left, and selecting 'Add Website':
Assuming you just use the default, you will need to copy your application to C:\inetpub\wwwroot\. You will then be able to access this by pointing your browser to http:\\localhost or http:\\127.0.0.1.

Assuming you are working with Windows, you will need to install an IIS on your machine. IIS is a part of Window's features, you can try installing it under:
Control Panel > Program and features > Turn windows features On / Off > Internet Information Services.
In some versions of windows, IIS is not available. In that case, you will need to download IISExpress.
After that - Configure a new website under your IIS, and point the website to the directory in your computer which has the project.
Read more here:
Installing IIS
Setting up a website

Cannot run Simple ASP.NET MVC Application with Visual Studio 2015 from IIS (Internal Server 500)

Windows 10 Professional
IIS 10
Visual Studio 2015 (Running as Administrator)
I want to run from IIS instead of IIS Express as I have an external IP pointing to my machine and I will be receiving messages from an external source. Ultimately I will be using WebAPI but for testing and setting up IIS I am using a simple ASP.NET MVC 5 Web Application.
I created a new ASP.NET MVC 5 Web Application, this is the skeleton Visual Studio 2015 MVC Template, I then ran the application using IIS Express, no issues:
I then went to IIS 10 and created a new website with "localhost" as the binding:
The Physical Path for this new website in IIS is C:\inetpub\wwwroot\AspNetMvcTest:
I then went to the web application properties and switched to IIS. I was asked if I would like to create a new Virtual Directory:
I clicked Yes, if you click No the operation will be canceled and you unsaved Web Application Properties. You have to click Yes to change to Local IIS Property in Visual Studio.
I then was told that IIS "localhost" was mapped to a different folder and would I like to remap:
I clicked Yes. If you click No you will have unsaved Web Application Property changes again and you will not be using Local IIS in Visual Studio.
This is interesting Visual Studio is trying to change the "Virtual Directory" because it will actual change the Physical Path of the IIS Website not add a Virtual Directory. A Virtual Directory is a folder, somewhere outside of the Physical Path of the IIS website that IIS will treat as is part of the Physical Path folder. But I digress.
Now I am told that the "Virtual Directory" was created successfully:
Now we can look at the changes Visual Studio 2015 made to IIS 10:
We have no Virtual Directories on the website bound to localhost:
My Physical Path has been changed by Visual Studio 2015 and it is mapped to my the directory my simple ASP.NET MVC 5 Web Application resides:
So even though Visual Studio 2015 uses the "Virtual Directory" when changing the ASP.NET MVC 5 Web Application Properties, Visual Studio 2015 was only concerned with the Physical Path and that is the only thing it changed in IIS that I can see.
Now for the Internal Server Error 500 Details
I press F5 in Visual Studio 2015 and F12 Tools says there is an Internal Server 500 Error:
If we inspect the request and response in Fiddler, there 500 Error has a Content Length = 0
To try and get more details of the 500 error I have turned Custom Errors off in my Web.Config and also added httpErrors Detailed and PassThrough:
I added "catch all" exceptions handling to Global.asax, no breakpoint hit:
Here is my Call Stack, which is empty and neither breakpoint in screenshot is ever hit:
I added a Console Application to my solution as "Set As Startup Project" and here is my Call Stack proving a break point can be hit:
Here is a screenshot of Event Viewer -> Application, I cleared the Application log, pressed F5 in Visual Studio 2015, refreshed the Application log and it is empty still:
I thought the issue is folder permissions after Visual Studio changed the Physical Path
So I added IIS_IUSRS and gave Full Control even though the Account does not need that high of a level of permission to the Physical Path directory:
My ApplicationPoolIndentity is Framework v4.0 and ApplicationPoolIdentity The ApplicationPoolIdentity is assigned membership of the Users group as well as the IIS_IUSRS group:
I tried adding the specific Application Pool to the Security properties of ASP.NET MVC app Physical Directory, so first I found the process Visual Studio F5 was attached to:
I added "DefaultAppPool" and my IIS Application Pool "IIS APPPOOL\AspNetMvcTest" to the Physical folder Security.
I added index.html to the Web Application Physical Folder and that does not work:
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<h4 style="color: black">hello world</h4>
</body>
</html>
I have moved the IIS website Physical Path to inetpub/wwwroot back to the directory I created when I created the website, I cannot even browse to a simple HTML file, I get the same empty 500 error
So now I am stuck and do not know what else to do.

TL;DR
Before reading the rest of answer it is likely you just need to run aspnet_regiis which you can do from cmd or via a cool tool in Web Platform Installer, if you search "ASP.NET" there is a handy "Execute ASP.NET IIS Registration tool" you can install.
Original Answer:
Thanks for all the help from everyone, first thing I should have done was taken a step back and tested an index.html "Hello World" test file from a IIS Website with c:\inetpub\wwwroot as the Physical Path of the IIS website.
When you first install IIS you have a default website, browse to it and make sure that works. Is a great first start to a new machine. But I just deleted that IIS site after installing IIS
Steps I took for fix:
I uninstalled IIS via Control Panel -> Programs and Features ->
Windows Features.
Restarted my computer
Installed IIS for Windows 10 following this document
Tested IIS by creating a Website, using the DefaultAppPool and then browsing localhost, and that worked (again when you first install IIS you have this website but I deleted it on mine a couple days ago)
I Found that my simple ASP.NET Website still did not work though and it was published to c:\inetpub\wwwroot\AspNetMvcTest so it was not a potential folders permission issue. When browsing, instead of loading my ASP.NET Website IIS redirected to the root c:\inetpub\wwwroot and displayed its IIS Welcome page ("iisstart.htm")
This means I needed to run aspnet_regiis, which I did, via cool tool in Web Platform Installer, if you search "ASP.NET" there is a handy "Execute ASP.NET IIS Registration tool" you can install.
That was it, I was all set, ASP.NET MVC Website started working from IIS immediately upon refreshing my browser (localhost in Location bar).

I think the main problem is that ASP.NET MVC 5 web requires .NET Framework 4.5 at least. From your provided information, the application pool of your web application was using .NET 4.0. It look like you've not registerd ASP.NET 4.5 with your IIS yet.
To register ASP.NET 4.5 with IIS, you could use using Visual Studio's command prompt (as an Administrator), go to the following directory and run the commmand aspnet_regiis.exe -i
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.5.<version>
After successfully register ASP.NET 4.5 with IIS, change your web application to use .NET 4.5 application pool.

How can I deploy an asp.net application using Visual Studio 2008

I am trying to publish a website using IIS, I made a virtual directory and in this directory I've added all the webpages and configured the virtual directory but still I am not able to run my web application.

Here is the step by step method to deploy an asp.net application
http://www.15seconds.com/issue/030806.htm
Please post any error message

Make sure that your are running the right asp.net Version...
check if in the asp.net tab if it's v 1 change it to v2

Could you please let me know the error message.( Check with minimum settings like startUp page , version, try publishing with Wizards etc)

In Visual studio, click on project, Properties, Web.
Under Servers, select Use local IIS Web server, then on Create virtual Directory.
Now, when you debug, the page should open in IIS, and Visual studio has taken care of most of the grudge work of setting up the IIS, all you will probably have to change is the security settings under IIS. Hope this helps.

If it is IIS7 check that your application has enough permissions to run:
IIS Actions Pane:
Basic Settings
Connect as (be sure to log in with Admin account first to test, then create you own specific user. Least Privilege Principle)
Test Settings (Authorization and Authentication is Green!)
Test your webisite

The question doesn't say what exactly the error is but you mentioned that you just created the virtual directory. Did you make it an web application? For IIS 6 follow this
link - Create and Configure Local ASP.NET Web Sites. In IIS7 just right click on it and convert it to application.
If its already a website, did you choose the correct framework? normally when you create a website it ill be assigned the default app-pool. If you have installed multiple dotnet then you might check which framework is in default app-pool. Then change the default app-pool to the correct version that is required by your website, or create a new app-pool.
There can be multiple reasons so if you could provide the error message then it would be easier to resolve the problem.
Thanks.