Configuring Applications

The .NET Framework gives developers and administrators control and flexibility over the way applications run. An administrator can control which protected resources an application can access, which versions of assemblies an application will use, and where remote applications and objects are located. Developers can put settings in configuration files, eliminating the need to recompile an application every time a setting changes. This section describes what can be configured and why configuring an application might be useful.

In This Section

• Configuration Files
  Describes the various types of configuration files.
• Configuring Security Policy
  Describes how to configure security policy.
• Configuring Cryptography Classes
  Describes how to map an algorithm name to a cryptography class and an object identifier to a cryptography algorithm.
• Specifying Which Runtime Version to Use
  Describes how to specify the runtime version to use for an application.
• Specifying Concurrent Garbage Collection
  Describes how to specify whether the runtime should run the garbage collector concurrently.
• Redirecting Assembly Versions
  Describes how to specify the location of an assembly and which version of an assembly to use.
• Creating a Publisher Policy File
  Describes when and how you should add a publisher policy file to specify assembly redirection and code base settings.
• Specifying an Assembly's Location
  Describes how to specify where the runtime should search for an assembly.
• Locating Assemblies Using DEVPATH
  Describes how to direct the runtime to use the DEVPATH environment variable when searching for assemblies.
• Registering Remote Objects Using Configuration Files
  Describes how to register remote objects in configuration files.
• Configuration Section Settings
  Describes how to use configuration sections and configuration section handlers to put custom application configuration settings in configuration files.
• Application Configuration Scenarios
  Describes the typical settings that might need to be configured using an example of client-server applications and an Internet Explorer application.
• Configuring Applications Using Dynamic Properties
  Describes how to use configuration files to store and retrieve dynamic properties.
• ASP.NET Configuration
  Describes how to configure ASP.NET applications.

Related Sections

• Configuration File Schema
  Provides the schema for configuration files.
• ASP.NET Settings Schema
  Describes each of the configuration sections within the <system.web> section of Web.config files and shows the full syntax that each supports.
• .NET Framework Configuration Tool (Mscorcfg.msc)
  Describes how to use the configuration tool to configure applications and computers.
• Code Access Security Policy Tool (Caspol.exe)
  Describes how to examine and modify machine, user, and enterprise level code access security policies.
• Assemblies
  Provides an overview of assemblies.
• Accessing Objects in Other Application Domains Using .NET Remoting
  Discusses remoting with .NET Framework applications.