Understanding Application and User Settings

S T

I'm trying to understand where user's settings are stored in a Window Forms application. I have a form in the application that calls "Properties.Settings.Default" to get user configurable data from the app.exe.config file. I also have a Save button that calls "Properties.Settings.Default.Save()" upon clicking by the user. When the user click on the save button, where are the changes actually being saved?

I checked the app.exe.config file, and it still has the default values where I set from the designer. According to the msdn article on Application Settings Overview, it mentioned that the settings will be saved in a user.config file where user is the user name of the person actually running the application. I tried to search for this file but to no availability.

Thanks.

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S T19y ago
Scott,
Thanks for the information.

I guess to save any user-scope settings that the user may have changed, I will need to save them programmatically into that user config file. The only thing is that when the same user logs into the application, I will need to read in these 'Saved' settings from that same file.

Thanks again.
st
Scott Lysle19y ago
The values are stored in Settings.Designer.cs (if it is C#) (under Properties -> Settings.settings).

Application settings cannot be changed by the user, user settings can. Typically you'd use application settings to hold things like connection strings where user settings could something transient and specific to a particular user such as a preference.