Where are the Properties.Settings.Default stored?

c# .net settings
DaveN59 picture DaveN59 · Jun 11, 2009 · Viewed 147.8k times · Source

I thought I knew this, but today I'm being proven wrong - again.

Running VS2008, .NET 3.5 and C#. I added the User settings to the Properties Settings tab with default values, then read them in using this code:

myTextBox.Text = Properties.Settings.Default.MyStringProperty;

Then, after the user edits the value in the options dialog I save it like this:

Properties.Settings.Default.MyStringProperty = myTextBox.Text;
Properties.Settings.Default.Save();

My question is, where is this new value saved? the MyApp.exe.config file in the executable directory is not updated, it still contains the default values. Plus, as far as I can tell, none of the other files in that directory are updated either! However, when the program reads the value back in, it gets the changed value, so I know it's saved somewhere...

This isn't just academic, I needed to be able to manually edit the value this morning and got myself stumped when I couldn't find anything that was changing.

Answer

jasonh picture jasonh · Jun 11, 2009

In order to work with newer versions of Windows' policy of only allowing read access by default to the Program Files folder (unless you prompt for elevation with UAC, but that's another topic...), your application will have a settings folder under %userprofile%\appdata\local or %userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data depending on which version of Windows you're running, for settings that are user specific. If you store settings for all users, then they'll be in the corresponding folder under C:\users or C:\Documents and Settings for all user profiles (ex: C:\users\public\appdata\local).

Related questions

ConfigurationManager.AppSettings - How to modify and save?

It might sound too trival to ask and I do the same thing as suggested in articles, yet it doesn't work as expected. Hope someone can point me to the right direction. I would like to save the usersettings per …

Read More
Equivalent to 'app.config' for a library (DLL)

Is there an equivalent to app.config for libraries (DLLs)? If not, what is the easiest way to store configuration settings that are specific to a library? Please consider that the library might be used in different applications.

Read More
c# - approach for saving user settings in a WPF application?

What approach do you recommend for persisting user settings in a WPF windows (desktop) application? Note that the idea is that the user can change their settings at run time, and then can close down the application, then when starting …

Read More