title: How can I persist a connection string in ASP.Net outside of web.config?
body: <p>I have an ASP.NET MVC application that I distribute as a zip file to customers. They then extract it on their servers. Everything is stored in a SQL database, but I need to save the connection string and that will get overwritten if it's stored in the web.config and they just copy over all the files. The current implementation creates a simple file in the site directory with the connection string, but in some cases the app pool identity doesn't have permission to write to the filesystem.</p>
  
  <p>My first thought was the registry, but it sounds like I'll run into similar permission issues. Is there a directory that I'm guaranteed to have access to? Another option would be to have an installer perform this action, but I'd prefer not to have to write an installer.</p>
  
  <p>Anything I'm overlooking?</p>