Easiest way to make web.config transforms for deployment?

Question

Anyone have a preferred method for making web.config transforms? I am curious as to what others have done for this. I hate having to continuously update the web.config every time I update or republish.

Answer 1

A few years ago Scott Hanselman gave a solution using pre-build events and batch files:

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ManagingMultipleConfigurationFileEnvironmentsWithPreBuildEvents.aspx

Basically you maintain a separate different configuration for each build and run the batch script pre-build to copy over the Web.Config. The obvious disadvantage is that if you have thirty different build configurations you need thirty different configs, but I find it's nice for projects where you only have two or three configs (like hobby projects, or tools you'll only ever be publishing to internal servers). Plus, it's nice knowing that if you want to you can take extra control of the build process if you want to.