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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-27T21:44:53+00:00

I’m trying to read some configuration in my global.aspx Application_Start method. When I read

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I’m trying to read some configuration in my global.aspx Application_Start method. When I read ConfigurationManager.GetSection("system.web/httpHandlers") everything is fine:

ConfigurationManager.GetSection(“system.web/httpHandlers”)
{System.Web.Configuration.HttpHandlersSection}
base {System.Configuration.ConfigurationSection}: {System.Web.Configuration.HttpHandlersSection}
Handlers: Count = 48

But when I read ConfigurationManager.GetSection("system.webServer/handlers") (which contains my custom handlers, it returns null. What am I doing wrong?

The section looks like this:

<system.webServer>
    <handlers>
        <add verb="*" path="*.loc" name="LocalizedResourceStreamer" 
                 type="CFW.WebUI.HttpHandlers.LocalizedResourceStreamer,WebUI" />
    </handlers>
</system.webServer>

Notes:

  • Web.configs are nested, ConfigurationManager.GetSection takes nesting into account by default.
  • The overall problem is trying to see if *.loc files are being served.

So far:
enter image description here
Looks like the system.webServer is ignored.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Depending on your OS/setup, the system.webServer element may be configured to be ignored – and so the config system will not be constructing any inner configuration items from it. E.g. on my machine (WinXP, IIS 5.1), it’s set to ignored by default.

    Check the machine.config on the machine where this code is running, and see how the system.webServer element is configured. I don’t have machines available with suitable later OSes at the moment, but it may be that this element is always set to be ignored – after all, that part of the config is for IIS’ use, rather than our own.

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