title: Unable to add customAppSettingsGroup inside my console application app.config
body: <p>I am working on an asp.net console application , and i am trying to add a custom app settings section to encrypt it, as follow:-</p>
  <pre><code>&lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot; encoding=&quot;utf-8&quot; ?&gt;
  &lt;configuration&gt;
    &lt;customAppSettingsGroup&gt;
      &lt;customAppSettings&gt;
        &lt;add key=&quot;KeyOne&quot; value=&quot;****&quot; /&gt;
      &lt;/customAppSettings&gt;
    &lt;/customAppSettingsGroup&gt;
    &lt;appSettings&gt;
      &lt;add key=&quot;ConcurrentRequests&quot; value=&quot;100&quot; /&gt;
      &lt;add key=&quot;ApiLimit&quot; value=&quot;100&quot; /&gt;
      &lt;add key=&quot;FullScanDay&quot; value=&quot;Tuesday&quot; /&gt;
      &lt;add key=&quot;logsFilePath&quot; value=&quot;C:\logslogs\&quot; /&gt;
      &lt;add key=&quot;TPSFilePathAndName&quot; value=&quot;C:\ctps_ns.txt&quot; /&gt;
      &lt;add key=&quot;PhoneNumberLength&quot; value=&quot;11&quot; /&gt;
    &lt;/appSettings&gt;
      &lt;startup&gt; 
          &lt;supportedRuntime version=&quot;v4.0&quot; sku=&quot;.NETFramework,Version=v4.6.1&quot; /&gt;
      &lt;/startup&gt;
  &lt;/configuration&gt;
  </code></pre>
  <p>but when i run the console application i will get this error:-</p>
  <pre><code>ConfigurationErrorsException: Unrecognized configuration section customAppSettingsGroup.
  </code></pre>
  <p>any advice?</p>
  <p>EDIT-</p>
  <p>I tried this inside my app.config:-</p>
  <pre><code>&lt;configuration&gt;
    &lt;configSections&gt;
      &lt;sectionGroup name=&quot;customAppSettingsGroup&quot;&gt;
        &lt;section name=&quot;customAppSettings&quot;
                 type=&quot;System.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler,System&quot; /&gt;
      &lt;/sectionGroup&gt;
    &lt;/configSections&gt;
    &lt;customAppSettingsGroup&gt;
      &lt;customAppSettings&gt;
        &lt;add key=&quot;KeyOne&quot; value=&quot;****&quot; /&gt;
      &lt;/customAppSettings&gt;
    &lt;/customAppSettingsGroup&gt;
    &lt;appSettings&gt;
      &lt;add key=&quot;ConcurrentRequests&quot; value=&quot;100&quot; /&gt;
      &lt;add key=&quot;ApiLimit&quot; value=&quot;100&quot; /&gt;
      &lt;add key=&quot;FullScanDay&quot; value=&quot;Tuesday&quot; /&gt;
      &lt;add key=&quot;logsFilePath&quot; value=&quot;C:\logslogs\&quot; /&gt;
      &lt;add key=&quot;TPSFilePathAndName&quot; value=&quot;C:\ctps_ns.txt&quot; /&gt;
      &lt;add key=&quot;PhoneNumberLength&quot; value=&quot;11&quot; /&gt;
    &lt;/appSettings&gt;
    &lt;startup&gt; 
       &lt;supportedRuntime version=&quot;v4.0&quot; sku=&quot;.NETFramework,Version=v4.6.1&quot; /&gt;
    &lt;/startup&gt;
  &lt;/configuration&gt;
  </code></pre>
  <p>but when i try to access the section using this code:-</p>
  <pre><code>NameValueCollection settings = ConfigurationManager.GetSection(&quot;customAppSettingsGroup/customAppSettings&quot;)               as System.Collections.Specialized.NameValueCollection;
  </code></pre>
  <p>i got this exception:-</p>
  <blockquote>
  <p>Could not load file or assembly 'System' or one of its dependencies.
  The system cannot find the file specified.'</p>
  </blockquote>