title: ConnectionStrings in app.config with characters that the .config file doesn't like
body: <p>I've looked for the answer and can't find it.  It's got to be something obvious and I'm just missing it.</p>
  
  <p>We have a connection string issue in an app.config file.  It uses SQL Server authentication, and the password contains an "&amp;" and a "+" symbol.  Obviously the parsing is going wrong.  Changing the password would be a hassle at this point.  Is there a way to handle this?</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/zenVT.png" alt="partial connection string with sensitive data blocked"></p>