Prevent an ASP.NET Application Restart when a Configuration Setting is changed

A change to configuration settings in your web.config leads to an application restart, affecting the Session and Cache objects. How do you prevent it? The answer is by placing configuration information in an external file. To do so, use the little known attribute called ‘configSource’ as shown below:

<connectionStrings configSource="Myconn.config"/>

In the Myconn.config file, declare the connectionStrings as follows:

<connectionStrings>
<add name="nwstring" connectionString="Data Source=(local);Initial
Catalog=Northwind;Integrated Security=true;"
providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
</connectionStrings>

Now you can go ahead and change the connectionString even in a live application without worrying about an application restart!

Make sure you also read about the RestartOnExternalChanges property.

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About The Author

Suprotim Agarwal, ASP.NET Architecture MVP works as an Architect Consultant and provides consultancy on how to design and develop Web applications.

Suprotim is also the founder and primary contributor to DevCurry, DotNetCurry and SQLServerCurry. He has also written an EBook 51 Recipes using jQuery with ASP.NET Controls.

Follow him on twitter @suprotimagarwal