Debugging Configuration File Errors
The runtime parses configuration files once when an application domain is created, and loads code into that application domain. The common language runtime handles errors in a configuration file by ignoring the entry. The runtime ignores the entire configuration file if it contains malformed XML. For invalid XML, only the invalid sections are ignored.
You can determine whether a configuration file is being used by determining whether assembly binding redirects are occurring. Use the Assembly Binding Log Viewer (Fuslogvw.exe) to see which assemblies are being loaded. To see all assembly binds, you must set an entry for ForceLog in the registry.