app.config -- configSections -- sectionGroup: allowExeDefinition="MachineToLocalUser"

Question

What does this mean?

allowExeDefinition="MachineToLocalUser"


    <sectionGroup name="userSettings" type="System.Configuration.UserSettingsGroup, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=99999999999" >
        <section name="MyApp.My.MySettings" type="System.Configuration.ClientSettingsSection, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=99999999999" allowExeDefinition="MachineToLocalUser" requirePermission="false" />
    </sectionGroup>

Answer 1

allowExeDefinition controls the location where the user settings are stored.
For userSettings sections the default is MachineToLocalUser and it means that the section could be stored in Machine.config, exe.config or user.config in the local user profile directory.

Other values for this property are:

• MachineOnly = the ConfigurationSection can be defined only in the Machine.config file.
• MachineToApplication = the ConfigurationSection can be defined either in the Machine.config file or in the Exe.config file in the client application directory. This is the default value.
• MachineToLocalUser = the ConfigurationSection can be defined in the Machine.config, in the Exe.config file in the client application directory, in the User.config file in the roaming user directory, or in the User.config file in the local user directory.
• MachineToRoamingUser = the ConfigurationSection can be defined in the Machine.config file, in the Exe.config file in the client application directory, or in the User.config file in the roaming user directory.