I have been working with the new custom configuration classes in .NET 2.0 and they really make creating custom xml configuration a snap. They are a little quirky to use at first but once you get past the initial learning curve they really make the job a lot easier.

One thing I really wanted to figure out is how to use these new classes to read files other than the default app/web.config. For example if you have one config file that might be shared between exes or if a config file is pulled from a URL. Its actually pretty easy to do.

First create your custom configuration file. It will look exactly the same as a web/app.config file except it will only contain your custom section(s). Create a section handler element identifying the custom section handler and the name of the section. Again, nothing different from doing this in the app/web.config.