winforms - Change Connection String After Creating Setup File in C#.NET

Question

I am creating a C# windows form applications, the working can be summarized as users fills some form and data is saved in Access database. Now the problem I am facing is that I have to deliver this as a setup file to someone. What I am thinking is that the code once installed on other computers and executed will give errors because of the connection string of Access db, as it will not match with that computer. I know that if a distribute projects I can put connection string in app.config and every user can change it according to his/her machine. But as I am giving a setup file how to solve this problem.

Answer 1

Suppose you deploy your app.config with this connectionstring

"Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=|DataDirectory|yourFile.accdb;"

In a WinForms application the |DataDirectory| shortcut represent your application working folder, but you can change at runtime where it points to using this code.

// appdomain setup information
AppDomain currentDomain = AppDomain.CurrentDomain;
//Create or update a value pair for the appdomain
currentDomain.SetData("DataDirectory", "Your user choosen path");

It eliminates the need to hard-code the full path which, has you have discovered, leads to several problems to resolve during install. Of course your setup should deliver your database in your user choosen path.