What is the difference between editing CMN DirCon service files manually and from the Advanced Settings of GUI?
Config.txt and several other files are created by the DC service when it decides to run the connector due to the schedule or by the configurators asking by using the run button. The service compares all the dates of the derived files and compares it to the date of the configuration.xml file. If the xml file is newer it overwrites all the files.
You can hand edit the config.txt file for a test but as soon as you click save on the configurator you will end up overwriting it on the next run.