Replacing Client section doesn't work (system.serviceModel)

I'm trying to replace the default machine.config settings for the "client" handler with my own handler, however, when i run it, i'm getting this error:

"Section or group name 'client' is already defined. Updates to this may only occure at the configuration level where it is defined."

here is how my app.config looks like:

<configuration>
  <configSections>
    <remove name="client"/>
    <sectionGroup name="system.serviceModel" type="System.ServiceModel.Configuration.ServiceModelSectionGroup, System.ServiceModel, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neut开发者_开发问答ral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089">
      <section name="client" type="xyz.Messaging.CustomClientSection, Point.Messaging" />
    </sectionGroup>
  </configSections>

Please let me know if you have any idea why it seems like that it doesn't remove this section (as one would expect) and gives me this error instead.

Thanks.

---

AFAIK, you can't do this. The <client> sub-section is strongly tied to the ServiceModelSectionGroup via its Client property.

---

You can do this, but you'll have to remove and re-add the entire system.serviceModel section. I don't think you can cherry-pick out just the "client" subsection.

<configuration>
  <configSections>
    <remove name="system.serviceModel"/>
    <sectionGroup name="system.serviceModel" type="System.ServiceModel.Configuration.ServiceModelSectionGroup, System.ServiceModel, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089">
      <section name="client" type="xyz.Messaging.CustomClientSection, Point.Messaging" />
    </sectionGroup>
  </configSections>
  ...
</configuration>

It'll be a bit of work, of course. Hopefully this is helpful, but I have a feeling you won't like this answer.

The only way this could work for removing a subsection is if a sectionGroup element supported the <remove> element, which it doesn't: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms228114.aspx

Hope this was helpful.