 <p>Its old question , but may help someone.</p> <p>You have to use <strong>Request.Form</strong> to get and call <strong>.Value</strong> to set the value.</p> <p><strong>HTML</strong></p> <pre><code> &lt;input runat="server" id="first_name_txt" type="text" placeholder="First Name" /&gt; </code></pre> <p><strong>CODE BEHIND</strong></p> <pre><code> //To get value: string myname=Request.Form["first_name_txt"]; // To set value: first_name_txt.Value=""; </code></pre>