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 tha

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.