March 4, 2009 | 
Author After successful installation & configuration of commerce server 2009, when I tried to open commerce server manager and navigate to global resources –> profiles –> Profile Catalog->Profile definitions, the profile properties didn’t shown up, instead I received a friendly HTML error message (you might have received different error).
After some investigation, I found that the error is due to Widgets virtual directory, which is missing from default port 80 website. For the people who doesn’t know commerce server, widgets directory have few files by which commerce server manager fetches data from commerce server database and it’s mandate to keep them in port 80 website. Since this port 80 website doesn’t have widgets directory, I was getting above error.
In my first attempt, I have create a virtual directory (named “widgets”) and mapped it to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Enterprise Servers\Commerce Server\Widgets directory. But, there is no luck as MOSS is not allow me to access it’s resource and MOSS doesn’t allow us to exclude paths (as we used to have in SharePoint).
I got a wonderful idea (let me appreciate myself – just kidding) and the idea is to solve this issue with HTTP handlers. I created a new website on port 80 with host header as system name as shown below and created a virtual directory (named “widgets”) and mapped it to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Enterprise Servers\Commerce Server\Widgets directory.
The problem is solved. I am able to view profile properties in commerce server manager However, it leads to a limitation of accessing the site with “localhost” (like http://localhost/pages/default.aspx).
Hope my workaround works for you 
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Thanks a lot for this post. it is realy nice 1.
This work with no HTP handlers or workarounds
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee824144(CS.20).aspx
To configure the profile definition
Expand Commerce Server Manager, expand Global Resources, expand Profiles(__commerce), expand Profile Catalog, expand Profile Definitions, right-click User Object, and then click Properties.
In the Properties dialog box, on the Custom Attributes tab, click New to display the Custom Attribute dialog box.
In the Custom Attribute dialog box, do the following:
Use this To do this
Name Type BizDeskHost.
Display Name Type BizDeskHost.
Description Type New Location for Business Desk.
Value Type :port, where is a Web server that is able to access the Widgets virtual directory.
Note The port value is only needed if the Web site is running on a port other than port 80.
Click OK.
To return to Commerce Server Manager, click OK.
Thanks………..:)