How to edit app.config at runtime for different role and membership providers - app-config

Question

I am working on a vb.net development project in Visual Studio 2015 and need to be able to edit the app.config for the project at run time in order to access role and membership providers for different web sites. I would like to be able to change the ApplicationServices settings in the connectionStrings section and the applicationName settings in the membership and roleManager provider sections. I have edited the initial app.config file in the project's base directory to look like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
<startup>
<supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.5" />
</startup>
<connectionStrings>
<clear />
<add name="ApplicationServices" connectionString="Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS; Integrated Security=True; User Instance=False; Connect Timeout=30; Initial Catalog=MYWEBSITE" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
</connectionStrings>
<system.web>
<membership>
<providers>
<clear />
<add name="AspNetSqlMembershipProvider" type="System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider" connectionStringName="ApplicationServices" applicationName="/" passwordFormat="Encrypted" enablePasswordRetrieval="true" enablePasswordReset="true" requiresQuestionAndAnswer="true" requiresUniqueEmail="true" maxInvalidPasswordAttempts="5" minRequiredPasswordLength="8" minRequiredNonalphanumericCharacters="1" passwordAttemptWindow="5" />
</providers>
</membership>
<roleManager enabled="true">
<providers>
<clear />
<add name="AspNetSqlRoleProvider" type="System.Web.Security.SqlRoleProvider" connectionStringName="ApplicationServices" applicationName="/" />
<add name="AspNetWindowsTokenRoleProvider" type="System.Web.Security.WindowsTokenRoleProvider" applicationName="/" />
</providers>
</roleManager>
</system.web>
</configuration>
At run time I am attempting to fetch the settings from the projects app.config file shown above using the following code:
Public Shared Function ReadAllConfigSettings(ByRef Configs(,) As String) As Boolean
ReadAllConfigSettings = False
Configs.Initialize()
Dim ConfigCounter As Integer = 0
Dim config As System.Configuration.Configuration = ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration(ConfigurationUserLevel.None)
Try
Dim Settings = config.AppSettings.Settings
If Settings.Count = 0 Then
ReadAllConfigSettings = False
Exit Function
Else
For Each key As String In Settings.AllKeys
ConfigCounter = ConfigCounter + 1
Configs(ConfigCounter, 1) = key
Configs(ConfigCounter, 2) = Settings(key).Value
Next
ReadAllConfigSettings = True
End If
Catch e As ConfigurationErrorsException
ReadAllConfigSettings = False
End Try
End Function
When I run the code above the Settings collection retrieved from the Settings = config.AppSettings.Settings line of code is always empty with null entries and the Settings.Count is 0.
I am stumped as to why this is not getting the setting I have added to the app.config file, and I cannot continue to work on changing them if I can't even figure out how to retrieve them. Can someone point me in the right direction?
Thanks!
David

Answer 1

After re-thinking the process I came up with a solution that appears to be a way to do it without trying to edit the app.config file. Below is the code I scrambled together from fragment I found during my research into the problem:
Public Shared Function UpdateMembership(ConnectionStr As String, AppName As String, UserName As String, OldPassword As String, NewPassword As String, TheQuestion As String, TheAnswer As String, Optional TheError As String = Nothing) As Boolean
UpdateMembership = False
Dim IsMember As Boolean = False
Dim AUser As MembershipUser
Dim ChangePassOK As Boolean = False
Dim ChangeQAOK As Boolean = False
Try
Dim settings As Object = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings("ApplicationServices")
Dim fi As Object = GetType(ConfigurationElement).GetField("_bReadOnly", (BindingFlags.Instance Or BindingFlags.NonPublic))
fi.SetValue(settings, False)
settings.ConnectionString = ConnectionStr
Membership.Providers.Item("AspNetSqlMembershipProvider").ApplicationName = AppName
Roles.Providers.Item("AspNetSqlRoleProvider").ApplicationName = AppName
Roles.Providers.Item("AspNetWindowsTokenRoleProvider").ApplicationName = AppName
IsMember = Membership.ValidateUser(UserName, OldPassword)
If IsMember Then
AUser = Membership.GetUser(UserName, False)
If Not IsNothing(AUser) Then
ChangePassOK = AUser.ChangePassword(OldPassword, NewPassword)
If ChangePassOK Then
ChangeQAOK = AUser.ChangePasswordQuestionAndAnswer(NewPassword, TheQuestion, TheAnswer)
End If
If ChangeQAOK Then
UpdateMembership = True
End If
End If
End If
Catch ex As Exception
If Not IsNothing(TheError) Then
TheError = ex.Message
End If
End Try
End Function
It works fine so it can be used to adjust the security settings for any user specific to each site's config.