In C#, are there any built-in exceptions I shouldn't use?

Question

Are there any Exceptions defined in the .NET Framework that I shouldn\'t throw in my own code, or that it is bad practice to? Should I write my own?

Answer 1

Microsoft was at one point telling programmers not to inherit directly from Exception, but instead to use ApplicationException as their base class. Not sure if that opinion still holds true, though...

And if a pre-defined exception already exists that covers your exact error condition (like "NullReferenceException", or "InvalidArgumentException" etc.) - by all means, throw those instead of re-inventing them inside your own code.

Marc