More specific config files, e.g. program-name.exe.nlog, should be used before using nlog.config. Commit #66bbed5242dca83fa8f24a6f72118d53e51674cd seems to have broken the precedence order for config file locations that was in place in NLog 2.0.0. GetCandidateFileNames seems to return the paths in reverse priority order. LogFactory used to use the last candidate file that existed. It now takes the first candidate that exists. The LogFactory change (to break on the first file that exists) makes sense. It will perform better. However, GetCandidateFileNames must also be changed to reverse the order.