.NET Config Files configSource outside the application directory folder

Question

I have two applications one a console application and the other an ASP.NET app. They both need to know the same appSettings and connectionStrings. So ideally I would like to

Answer 1

I had quite a struggle with this issue, but I found a good solution for it here: test run with external config

(You can direct the test run to copy files and directories into the test run directory by editing the .testrunconfig file.)

Although why the unit test type project can get config settings from its own app.config, but not be able to load referenced config files like a normal app.config is kind of baffling to me. I'd call it a bug because you would expect a test project app.config to behave the same way that the application's app.config behaves, but it doesn't.