Discovering Configuration Data Locations

Usually, it's quite easy to discover where an application has stored its configuration data. Most times, applications store their data in HKEY_Current_User\Software. In Figure 87, you can see the data for many popular applications stored in the registry.

Figure 87. Many applications store their data in the registry.

Note that although most applications store their information in HKEY_Current_User\Software, if you're trying to do something in Control Panel, those values would be stored in HKEY_Current_User\Control Panel. For this reason, you might need look around to find the right data store location if the application uses the registry.

If an application's data isn't found in the registry, we suggest you look for other file types manually. You can look in the following three common key locations for user configuration data:

• C:\program files\<application vendor>\<application> for 32-bit and 64-bit machines
• C:\program files(x86)\<application vendor>\<application> for 64-bit machines
• %localappdata%