Question

I wrote a form application in c# using Visual Studio 2008, third party dlls, an xml file and images. The images have been added to the project as resources.

A System.IO.FileNotFoundException is thrown when I attempt to run the published version of the executable on another machine.

If I copy the .exe file to the desktop on the pc, and also copy the dlls and the xml file to the desktop, double clicking on the exe works fine.

In my project, I have the copyLocal set to true for the required dll references. The xml is added to the project and set to copy if newer to output directory. I also checked the publish application files and everything is there.

The line I use to load the xml file is this

config = new XmlDocument();
config.Load("fileName.xml");

Answer 1

I’m assuming the FileNotFound exception is being thrown when you try to load the XML file, right?

Simply looking for “filename.xml” doesn’t seem like a fantastic idea to me, especially if this is a key configuration file for your application.

I typically try to move these things into my App.config file then load them either using a fully qualified path or a short path. For example:

App.config

<add key="ExternalConfig" value="D:\\config.xml"/>

.cs file

config = new XmlDocument();
config.Load(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ExternalConfig"]);

You could also use a relative path, but keep in mind that you’re always relative to the current working directory.

Alternatively, based on the type of data in your configuration, you could try to store this information to you App.config file and do away with a config.xml altogether.