On Windows, the next release will not store preferences in the
".ethereal" subdirectory of your home directory.
It will, instead, store it in the "Ethereal" subdirectory of the
"application data" directory. That's what Microsoft says Windows
applications should do.
(Not store them in the "Ethereal" directory, of course; they say it
should be in a directory whose name is the version number of the
software, under a directory whose name is the name of the software,
under a directory whose name is the name of the vendor of the software,
e.g. "Adobe\Acrobat Reader\4.0", say - but that's overkill for
Ethereal, and having different directories for different releases would
be ugly if we put out new releases every few months, as the next release
wouldn't see the previous release's settings.
Besides, I don't even think *Microsoft* necessarily put all those extra
layers of directory in there all the time....)
It will find the "application data" directory by:
checking whether the "APPDATA" environment variable is set
(Windows 2000 and versions of Windows NT later than that -
"Windows 2000" is Windows NT 5.0, and "Windows XP" is Windows NT
5.1 - set it for you) and, if so, using that;
if it's not set, checking whether the "USERPROFILE" environment
variable is set (Windows NT 4.0 and versions of Windows NT later
than that set it for you), and, if so, using the "Application
Data" directory under that;
if neither of those are set, using "C:\".
It'll create the "Application Data" directory if necessary, and create
the "Ethereal" directory under the "application data" directory if
necessary.
It will, if it doesn't find a file in that directory, try looking for it
in the ".ethereal" directory under your home directory, just in case you
happened to have stuff stored there. It will not, however, store new
stuff there.
Not having any Windows 95, 98, or ME systems, I don't know whether they
set either "USERPROFILE" or "APPDATA".
Your "application data" directory, as it's under your profile directory,
will not, as I understand it, normally be on a file server while you're
logged in; this should eliminate a number of problems that have shown up
due to Ethereal using the home directory, which:
if you aren't set up with to have a home directory, tends not to
be set, so that Ethereal stores settings in "c:\.ethereal",
which is kind of bogus, especially on a multi-user OS like
Windows NT;
if you are set up with a home directory, tends to be on a file
server, which appears to have caused various problems, from the
mail we've seen.
>From what I can determine, "roaming profiles" or whatever the heck
they're called involve copying stuff from a file server to the profile
directory (which is presumably on your local disk) when you log in, and
copying updated stuff back when you log out; I guess this is done to
support "disconnected operation", i.e. operation when you have no file
server, without making you completely dependent on the file server.
(On UNIX, Ethereal will continue to store settings in the ".ethereal"
subdirectory of your home directory, as that follows the UNIX
convention.)