Where Are My User-Defined Application Settings Stored in Windows?

Where Windows user-defined application settings are stored

You may think you understand where user-customized application settings are stored, but recent experience has prompted you to reexamine your understanding. This article will explore the storage mechanism for settings defined under the "Properties.Settings" tab.

Your code uses the default values ​​for these settings during initialization and updates them when the user makes changes through the options dialog. However, the default values ​​in the "MyApp.exe.config" file (located in the executable directory) remain unchanged. It is worth noting that when running the program again, the updated value can still be retrieved accurately.

To resolve this apparent paradox, it’s important to understand the latest changes to Windows security policies. To prevent unauthorized access to sensitive directories such as "Program Files", Microsoft has introduced read-only access by default. Therefore, user-specific settings are no longer stored in the executable directory.

Settings are now stored in a dedicated settings folder under "%userprofile%appdatalocal" or "%userprofile%Local SettingsApplication Data". The exact location depends on the version of Windows you are using. For settings shared by all users, you can find them in the appropriate folder under "C:users" or "C:Documents and Settings".

Understanding where user-defined application settings are stored is more than academic. It allows you to manually edit these values ​​if necessary, thus maintaining the intended functionality of the program.

The above is the detailed content of Where Are My User-Defined Application Settings Stored in Windows?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!