I have a parent application which has a config file that contains connection strings.

I would like all child applications I develop to be able to reference this config file so I only have to update connection strings in one place.

**Parent Application web.config**

```
<connectionStrings configSource="ConnectionStrings.config"/>

```

**Parent Application ConnectionStrings.Config**

```
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<connectionStrings>

    <add name="MyConnectionString" connectionString="Data Source=***;Initial Catalog=***;Integrated Security=False; Password=***;User ID=***" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />

</connectionStrings>

```

This works fine for bringing in data in the parent application.

I've added the ConnectionStrings.config file to my child application as a linked file and then reference it in the web.config as follows:

**Child Application web.config**

```
<connectionStrings configSource="ConnectionStrings.config"/>

```

But when I run the child application I get the following error:

> 
> Unable to open configSource file 'ConnectionStrings.config'.
>  (C:\Child Application\web.config line 8)
> 
> 
> 

Any ideas?

Thanks