 <p>If your projects are separated in a different file from ccnet.config, then you need to restart the service unless you touch the actual ccnet.config. </p> <p>We use ENTITY with SYSTEM file reference in ccnet.config for our projects, so we're in the same boat. I'm happy to pay the price for easier project maintenance, as it's easy to script a restart:</p> <pre><code>net stop CCService net start CCService IISRESET </code></pre> <p>If you wanted to completely automate this, and had your projects under source control, then you could trigger an update and restart whenever your project files are touched.</p>