Team Development with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server

correct when creating builds for production releases and for any test environments. As
part of this build setup, the appropriate User.confg file must be retrieved from the source
control system and copied into the correct location for MSBuild to be able to find it.
Referencing Databases
Database references in the form of connection strings can also be managed by using an
external configuration file. The advantage of this approach is that each developer can
easily specify his or her own connection string in their own private User.config file. Any
changes made by one developer, such as redirecting the connection to a local database for
unit testing purposes, do not affect other developers.
User configuration files can also be used to control environment-specific settings, such as
those required by a test environment. The test environment can also use a User.config file
that references the test database.
The procedure is similar to the preceding Web references example, except that in that
example the Web service proxy contains the code to retrieve the Web service URL from
the configuration file. For database connection strings, you must provide the code to read
the connection string.
How to Use User Configuration Files for Database Connection Strings
The following procedure explains how to store and then reference a database connection
string within a user configuration file.
To use a user configuration file to store database connection strings:
1. Add a configSource="user.config" attribute to the element of
your main application configuration file.
2. To override the main application configuration file, create a User.config file (located
in the same folder as the application configuration file), and then add a similar
entry to the file. Notice that the following connection string
references a local database.
3. Within your project, use the following code to obtain the connection string from the
user configuration file. This code uses the static ConnectionStrings property of the