Handling configuration settings in asp.net web application

Question

I have a web application with over 200 configuration settings. These control everything from UI to Business logic.

Should these be retrieved on application startup o

Answer 1

I agree with Kelsey, don't overcomplicate things and just use the .NET framework classes for retrieving the values. Web.config is usually where you'd keep them.
I would however recommend creating a simple static class for access:

using System.Configuration // Add a reference for this... ;

public static class Config
{
  public static string DbConnection
  {
    get
    {
      return ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["ConnectionString"].ConnectionString;
    }
  }

  public static string SomeValue
  {
    get 
    {
      return ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["SomeValue"].ToString();
    }
  }
}

It'll give you strongly typed values and easy access. You can also perform some kind of validation with a class like this. Very handy. And if you later decide not to use web.config, this class is easily changed to retrieve the values elsewhere.