How to use a App.config file in WPF applications?

In your app.config, change your appsetting to:

<applicationSettings>
    <WpfApplication1.Properties.Settings>
        <setting name="appsetting" serializeAs="String">
            <value>c:\testdata.xml</value>
        </setting>
    </WpfApplication1.Properties.Settings>
</applicationSettings>

Then, in the code-behind:

string xmlDataDirectory = WpfApplication1.Properties.Settings.Default.appsetting.ToString()

You have to reference the System.Configuration assembly which is in GAC.

Use of ConfigurationManager is not WPF-specific: it is the privileged way to access configuration information for any type of application.

Please see Microsoft Docs - ConfigurationManager Class for further info.

You have to reference System.Configuration via explorer (not only append using System.Configuration). Then you can write:

string xmlDataDirectory = 
    System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.Get("xmlDataDirectory");

Tested with VS2010 (thanks to www.developpez.net). Hope this helps.

In my case, I followed the steps below.

App.config

<configuration>  
   <startup> 
       <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.5" />
  </startup>

 <appSettings>
   <add key="POCPublishSubscribeQueueName" value="FormatName:Direct=OS:localhost\Private$\POCPublishSubscribe"/>
 </appSettings>

</configuration>

Added System.Configuartion to my project.

Added using System.Configuration statement in file at top.

Then used this statement:

string queuePath = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["POCPublishSubscribeQueueName"].ToString();