WebForms UnobtrusiveValidationMode requires a ScriptResourceMapping for jQuery

Today while working on an ASP.NET web application in VS Express 2012 for Web, I got a strange error like this.

It was strange because I just added some basic components like TextBox, RequiredfieldValidator, and validation summary controls only. Later I found a Microsoft Connect issue. And according to the Connect website, we can fix this by removing the following element from the web.config file.

<add key="ValidationSettings:UnobtrusiveValidationMode" 
value="WebForms" />

But I couldn’t find this element in my web.config file. Another option to fix this issue is registering jQuery in Global.asax in the Application_Start event like this:

ScriptManager.ScriptResourceMapping.AddDefinition("jquery", 
    new ScriptResourceDefinition
{
Path = "~/scripts/jquery-1.7.2.min.js",
DebugPath = "~/scripts/jquery-1.7.2.min.js",
CdnPath = "http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.4.1.min.js",
CdnDebugPath = "http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.4.1.js"
});

And it worked without any issue. Adding the following element in web.config also works.

<add key="ValidationSettings:UnobtrusiveValidationMode" value="None" />

You can find more about Unobtrusive JavaScript on Wikipedia.

Happy programming