c# - Which .config element affects exception handling with UnhandledExceptionMode set to UnhandledExceptionMode.Automatic?

Question

I have a Windows Forms application that has this code in the program's start up:

Application.SetUnhandledExceptionMode(UnhandledExceptionMode.Automatic);

In the MSDN Documentation for UnhandledExceptionMode.Automatic it states that:

Automatic - Route all exceptions to the ThreadException handler, unless the application's configuration file specifies otherwise.

Does anyone know exactly which element/attribute in the config file it is that affects this setting?

Answer 1

You can add a JitDebugging section to your config file like this:

<configuration>
  <system.windows.forms jitDebugging="true"/>
</configuration>

This is equivalent to setting the UnhandledExceptionMode to UnhandledExceptionMode.ThrowException (incidentally, if you run your application with a Debugger attached, this option is automatically enabled).

Note that UnhandledExceptionMode.Automatic is the default used by .Net unless you specify otherwise; as far as I can tell, the only reason to explicitly set the Unhandled Exception Mode to Automatic is if you want to undo a previous call that changed it to something else. Note that if you do set it to something other than Automatic, the configuration file setting will not be read.

Note that if you attach a ThreadException to the current AppDomain, the result is automatically as if you had set the UnhandledExceptionMode to UnhandledExceptionMode.CatchException.