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Asked: 2026-06-06T16:09:06+00:00

I have a VS2010 unit test project set to using SpecFlow 1.8.1 and mstest.

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I have a VS2010 unit test project set to using SpecFlow 1.8.1 and mstest. In order to get the SpecFlow unit tests working, I’ve done the following:-

  1. I added the references to the following files in my project:-

    Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.UnitTestFramework.dll
TechTalk.SpecFlow.dll

    Note that the TechTalk.SpecFlow.dll has been added into my project and the reference points to that file.

  2. I’ve set the “Copy Local” property of the TechTalk.SpecFlow.dll reference to True.

  3. I’ve also added an App.Config that specifies “MsTest.2010” as the provider, and regenerated all code-behinds for the SpecFlow features.

Everything works in my VS2010, the tests run successfully in both the SpecFlow testrunner and the mstest test runner. BUT when I try to run the mstests in TFS 2008 (using a .vsmdi test list file), it failed with the following exception:-

Class Initialization method MyNamespace.MyTestFeature.FeatureSetup threw exception.
System.Configuration.ConfigurationErrorsException:
System.Configuration.ConfigurationErrorsException: An error occurred creating the
configuration section handler for specFlow: Could not load file or assembly
'TechTalk.SpecFlow' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file
specified. (D:\Projects\TestProject\TestResults\administrator_MYPC 2012-06-27
18_30_05_Any CPU_Debug\Out\TestProject.DLL.config line 4) --->
System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'TechTalk.SpecFlow'
or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

Note that the TFS built the project fine and it runs other unit tests in the same project (normal mstests, not SpecFlow) without problems. It only failed for the SpecFlow test runs.

So what am I doing wrong?

Edit: The contents of my App.Config file looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
  <configSections>
    <section
       name="specFlow"
       type="TechTalk.SpecFlow.Configuration.ConfigurationSectionHandler, TechTalk.SpecFlow"/>
  </configSections>
  <specFlow>
    <unitTestProvider name="MsTest.2010" />

    <runtime detectAmbiguousMatches="true"
         stopAtFirstError="false"
         missingOrPendingStepsOutcome="Inconclusive" />

    <trace traceSuccessfulSteps="true"
           traceTimings="false"
           minTracedDuration="0:0:0.1" />
  </specFlow>
</configuration>
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I finally found the more proper fix for this issue. I just need to add a post-build event to remove the .config file from the build output. (The App.config file is used only to generate the code-behind during design time. It is not used at all during runtime, so it can be removed.)

    The command for the post-build event looks like this:-

    del /f /q "$(TargetDir)$(TargetFileName).config"

    Correction: The .config file is used for generating inconclusive results, so a better post-build event command is as follows:-

    if "$(IsDesktopBuild)"=="false" del /f /q "$(TargetDir)$(TargetFileName).config"
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