Just for clarification, it’s really not meant to make .Net apps portable across different versions of Windows (or to port the entire .Net framework to other OSes).

It is meant to allow users to carry their application settings along with the executable, rather than being tied to Microsoft’s user settings architecture, while still remaining compliant with said architecture.

Very nice! It would have been so simple for Microsoft to have done this. Good work Mike @ Geek-Republic!

portable’ across all versions of Windows. : D I just shit myself a little

I’ve often grumbled that overloading the word “portable” was a bad idea, and the confusion above only reinforces this. This has absolutely nothing to do with software portability, but is about storing the application’s .config file in the same directory as the executable, presumably so you can run the software from writeable removable storage and take the settings around with you rather than have them stored in your user profile.

Given that most applications install in Program Files and won’t be able to write to their own directory (not to mention that most apps would want to maintain different settings per user, and/or store those settings in a roaming profile) I think Microsoft’s implementation is a good one for the general case. I’m not sure why the author rags on Microsoft so much as it’s relatively straightforward to write your own provider if you want to go against the “correct” way to store settings on Windows.

In summary, when you write a .net app save files in the path of the Executing Assembly or it’ll end up in some weird folder in your user dir

I was amazed how ‘useless’ settings were stored normally. The executable path, version, instance all are part of the so called evidence that needs to match. No fun when updating versions or debugging.
So then I tried the (non-portable) RegistrySettingsProvider example from MS$, then an improved version by someone else with some tweaks of my own (null & SerializedValue handling).

Where does the link say anything about making a C# apps portable across versions of Windows? C# targets .NET, which indeed _is_ compatible across versions of Windows.

It also has nothing to do with C# except that the hack given uses code “reuse” via copy-and-paste.

Instead, the link gives a way to have a single configuration for multiple apps or instances of an app. Usually, this is _bad_.

wow, c# isn’t portable between different versions of windows – it’s true ’cause had said so! Seriously, this isn’t a hack, just some sample code. If I was looking for sample code or hints and tips, I’d be reading stackoverflow.com and the like, not had. Doing those coding primers is one thing, but this?

Well, anybody who creates commercial level .NET applications already have a library for configuration management. This code is not something significant at all. It’s just another config lib.