ASP.NET Forms Auth - exclude "/" root from being authenticated

Hi All,
 We have a weird issue found during setting up a new Windows 2003 Server with IIS6.0 & ASP.NET 2.0, our site is built using ASP.NET forms authentication with general authorization to deny access to all users & allow explicitly to static, home pages etc, -- web.config setting for forms auth looking as below:
         <authentication mode="Forms">
            <forms name="appNameAuth" path="/" loginUrl="~/Pages/Users/Login.aspx" protection="All" timeout="60" defaultUrl="~/Pages/Inner.aspx">
            </forms>
        </authentication>
        <authorization>
            <deny users=" ...