Get the config folder of a third-party Click-Once application

Question

Currently I am messing around with a Click-Once WPF application. That application is some third-party application that was not developed by me. I also do not have access to its sources.

It is run on a Windows server periodically and automatically (using a self made launcher written in standard C++) by executing the corresponding *.appref-ms link that was placed in the start menu path on installation of the application. This works fine.

Due to periodically arising problems with that application my launcher needs to wipe all configuration files before starting it so I get a well defined run at all times. Those files are placed in one of the application's folders. That config path for its settings reads like this (I found it by searching the AppData tree manually):

C:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Local\Apps\2.0\Data\WM4WPKCW.P5Z\67QVXD6C.0NT\<app>_f6187a2321850a68_0003.0004_1a67f9f1633c43fc\Data\AppFiles\

Please note that this config path is pretty different from the application path (which uses differently named folders):

C:\Users\<User>\AppData\Local\Apps\2.0\5HN2CKMO.MPL\YOL20MYR.O8L\<app>_f6187a2321850a68_0003.0004_f6ab8c93b3a43b7c\

Since this config path changes on each update of the Click-Once application I need to find it by code (preferably C++) automatically. Unfortunately I could not figure out a way to do this.

How can I make my launcher find the config path of the Click-Once application based on its *.appref-ms file?

Answer 1

From Raghavendra Prabhu's blog entry “Client Settings FAQ” :

” If you want to get to the path programmatically, you can do it using the Configuration Management API (you need to add a reference to System.Configuration.dll). For example, here is how you can get the local user.config file path:

 Configuration config = ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration(ConfigurationUserLevel.PerUserRoamingAndLocal); Console.WriteLine("Local user config path: {0}", config.FilePath); 

The code is C# (evidently), but shouldn't be that hard to translate to C++/CLI.

Raghavendra Prabhu further writes:

” If you need to store the settings in a different location for some reason, the recommended way is to write your own SettingsProvider . This is fairly simple to implement and you can find samples in the .NET 2.0 SDK that show how to do this. Keep in mind however that you may run into the same isolation issues mentioned above .

Disclaimer: I have not tested any of this.