Question

I am trying to make a simple application which will be used to point a web browser control to some of our web applications at my work. I would like to have only one exe file but also have an admin window to change some of the settings and have them persist when the application is closed. Is that possible? I have looked at the application settings resources part but as I understand that makes a file that loads the settings.

I don’t want to have to parse a file or have anything but ONE file so please don’t suggest doing that if it is possible.

Answer 1

Just use application settings – that will create a single file, you won’t have to do any parsing, it’ll all be fine.

It’ll be separate to the exe file, but unless you meant that “ONE file” to include the executable and rewrite that on the fly, it should fit your description easily.

For example, let’s build a console app that just remembers how many times it’s been launched:

1. Create a new console application project
2. Go to the properties page, and click into the Settings tab.
3. Click on the link to create a settings file
4. Type in the table to create a setting called “LaunchCount” of type int. Make it either user scope or application scope, depending on whether you want it to be persisted per user or system-wide.
5. Hit Ctrl-S to save.

6. In the Main method in Program.cs, write this code:

   Settings settings = Settings.Default;
   settings.LaunchCount++;
   Console.WriteLine("Launch count: {0}", settings.LaunchCount);
   settings.Save();
   

7. Add the appropriate using directive for Settings (put the cursor in Settings and hit Ctrl-.)

8. Run the app several times, and observe the number increasing.