How to Read, Write, Modify & Remove Application Settings From Config File Using VB 2005?

How to Read, Write, Modify & Remove Application Settings From Config File Using VB 2005?

• bslim

  Hi,
  
  Good news!  There are very simple features to do this in VB 2005: the Project Designer and My.Settings.
  
  First, open the Project Designer by double-clicking My Project, and click on Settings tab.  You can add named settings there.
  
  Second, in code you can access these properties by typing in My.Settings.[yoursettingname]. 
  
  You can read and write to these settings.  E.g.
  
  

  'read a setting name = My.Settings.ProductName 'write a setting My.Settings.ProductName = "Visual Basic"

  
  
  Hope this helps.
  
  Paul Yuknewicz
  Visual Basic
  

• PRSDeveloper

  Correct, only User settings can be modified/saved.  Sorry I didn't point that out.  User settings are the default in builds post Beta2 (and that's what I'm using now ;) ). 
  
  You should be seeing that the application is saving these config values, and reloads the updated settings upon app launch, correct   If that's the case then you're probably looking to see the change in the app.exe.config file rather than the user.config file. Changes will only persist in the user directory .config file, so you need to look there; however in most occaisions you can work through the My.Settings APIs rather than with these files.
  
  Otherwise, if the app is not actually saving the settings at all you might have flipped a switch in the Project Designer that turns off Auto Saving of settings.  You can work around this manually by writing the code to My.Settings.Save explicitly at the right time.
  
  

  Sub ChangeAndPersistSettings()     My.Settings.LastChanged = Today     My.Settings.Save() End Sub

  
  
  Hopefully one of these fixes will do the trick for you.  Let us know.
  
  Thanks,
  
  Paul Yuknewicz
  
  

  
  

• SanooD

  OK, i found where user.config file is saved. There is anyway i can change it to be saved in application folder rather than user directory
  
  thanks
  
  

• Jessli

  I have already set it up to use this sort of settings setup and I have used the My.Settings.Save() command after having made a series of changes.

  I set it up so that there are 18 button name and link settings and 5 user name, password and limits (eg is admin sort of things).

  I get the user name things to work perfectly, which can be changed by an admin. But the button variables don't want to work. I don't get it because I am using the exact same process to save changes to user information as with the button changing by an admin.

  Please I really need help because it is getting so frustrating...

  It did change this stuff while I was doing debug runs of the program, but once published or not run by VB.NET the program just doesn't want to cooperate.

  
  
  

• Niels A-J

  Short of writing your own settings provider, no, there is no way to change this.
  
  Raghavendra explains why in his Client Settings FAQ:
  
  http://blogs.msdn.com/rprabhu/articles/433979.aspx
  
  Just out of curiosity, why do you want to change this path It will break your application if you run under a normal user account, since the directory where the application is installed is normally read-only for non-admin type accounts.
  
  Best regards,
  Johan Stenberg
  
  

• EdCallahan

  Can anyone point me in the direciton of doing this stuff using the .NET Framework using C#. Right now I am just trying to figure out how to read settings from the app.config file but having difficulties and there seems to be a lack of info about this.
  
  Thanks
  Martin
  
  

• racka4279

  and where would i find this user.config file
  
  thanks
  
  

• jerv_it

  I have to change the Scope to "User" on Settings tab, otherwise it was getting declared as Public ReadOnly property.
  
  Secondly, on click of a button changed the value of the property, but it was not written back to my config file What cud have gone wrong
  
  
  
  
  

• dctech

  Are you writing your own settings provider
  
  Or do you want to define settings for your application
  
  Best regards,
  Johan Stenberg
  
  
• How to Read, Write, Modify & Remove Application Settings From Config File Using VB 2005?