Configure Playwright to run in an ASP.NET Core 8 web app

I am trying to use Playwright to run within an ASP.NET Core 8 web app. It installed the browsers under the user profile.

Everything works in development. When I deploy the web app for release, it throws the error:

Microsoft.Playwright.PlaywrightException: Executable doesn't exist   
at C:\Windows\system32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\ms-playwright\chromium_headless_shell-1161\chrome-win\headless_shell.exe

I know I can just copy the files over to this location, but would rather not. How can I get it to look for a custom folder?

I am using .NET 8.

Playwright looks for its binaries in %LOCALAPPDATA%\ms-playwright.
An IIS worker that starts under systemprofile has no %LOCALAPPDATA%, so it tries
C:\Windows\system32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\ms-playwright\… and finds nothing (see https://playwright.dev/dotnet/docs/browsers).

Two ways to fix it:

1. Load a user profile
   IIS Manager → Application Pools → your pool, Advanced Settings → set Load User Profile = True
   Then run playwright install once while logged in as the same identity. The profile now contains the browsers and Playwright starts fine.

2. Use a shared cache

• Pick a folder, e.g. D:\Playwright\Browsers.
• Install the browsers there: $Env:PLAYWRIGHT_BROWSERS_PATH='D:\Playwright\Browsers'; pwsh .\playwright.ps1 install --with-deps
• Expose the same env-var to the site (via web.config or Environment.SetEnvironmentVariable in Program.cs). From then on Playwright will launch from that folder in every environment.