[2005] Avoiding possible user.config file collisions

[esharris]

I'm developing a Visual Basic .Net application. Numerous versions of the program have user settings that put user.config files under paths of the following form.

C:\Documents and Settings\{user name}\Local Settings\Application Data\{company name}\?????\1.0.0.0

The "user name" corresponds to the sub-folder for my user account. The "company name" is the name of my company. The settings information has evolved over time. Within the "company name" sub-folder, there are numerous folders whose names begin with name of my executable

{my program}.exe

(There are a few starting with {my program}.vshost.exe.)
Following the executable file name prefix (of these sub-folder names) is a suffix that begins with "_Url_" and continues with a indecipherable sequence of letters and numbers.

Twice, I have had some version of my program crash inelegantly because it didn't recognize the input in the user.config it found. I believe one version of my program is reading the user.config file of an earlier version of my program.

So, how does Visual Basic .Net avoid possible user.config file collisions? Clearly, you don't want different versions of the same program sharing a user.config; their required contents may differ.