I'm was experiencing the same issue here using .Net 4.0 and the latest source from the SVN. Seems that the new plug-in architecture forces everyone to use the app.config format and instantiate the plugin factories etc. I had it working beautifully with an earlier version but updated to a later revision which broke it. I like a lot of the features in the CC framework, its a great resource but I'm not so sure its a good idea to render system level exception messages centered on top of medical images by default..
Searched the forum for a while, couldn't make the app.config load or set the plugin path or add dummy assemblies. Since I'm only using a bare minimum of the CC (loading dicoms, working with tags, bitmap conversion etc) I've found a simple solution you might want to try:
- download source from svn
- commente out methods in GDIRenderer.cs such as ShowErrorMessage() and DrawTextPrimitive()
- build and use the new dll's.
(search tags: FilteredLayoutSettingsXml not found, settings property not found, App.config, error message on top)