What happens when web.config is updated ?

I have had situations where I had to edit the web.config file on a live SharePoint environment. So, what happens if I go ahead and perform the config update ? Questions which ponder are,

• Will this kick off IIS worker process to recycle ?
• Will active users lose their session state ?
• What’s the user experience when web.config is updated and user is finishing up modifying a SharePoint list item ?

Without any doubt, here are the actions -

• The application pool will be reset and thus users lose their session state.
• Because of this action, the next set of page requests will be slower (as cached resources are not there anymore)
• This action is something similar to updating a document and reopening in desktop

Its always advised to backup the manually edited web.config and ofcourse other updated files too.

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