Question

I have a scenario where 1 Winform app is installed on multiple Citrix servers. The app should have exactly the same configuration on each server (we have multiple servers for scale).

I would like to be able to share just 1 copy of the app.config file, so that I can make a change in 1 place and have it effect every installation of the application.

As nearly as I can tell, the only built-in support from .net is to use the configSource attribute, but that only works for individual config sections. I would like to share the whole config file (or at least config groups).

Am I missing anything built into .net that would help me?

If not, are there any good third party or open source solutions out there?

Answer 1

You could put your app.config somewhere on a share and modify your winform application startup code, using the trick described on SO here: Change default app.config at runtime, something like this:

namespace WindowsFormsApplication1
{
    static class Program
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// The main entry point for the application.
        /// </summary>
        [STAThread]
        static void Main()
        {
            using (AppConfig.Change(@"\\myserver\mypath\app.config"))
            {
                Application.EnableVisualStyles();
                Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
                Application.Run(new Form1());
            }
        }
    }
}