[Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> 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.

An option is to have it, if it doesn't find the file in the "Ethereal"
subdirectory of your "application data" directory, but does find it in
the ".ethereal" subdirectory of your home directory, *copy* it to the
"Ethereal" subdirectory of your "application data" directory (creating
those directories as necessary), so that it'll find it there the next
time, rather than possibly looking on a file server.

I'm somewhat inclined to do that, if it doesn't cause too many
complications; note, though, that the copy may fail - Ethereal could, in
that case, pop up a message box telling you about the problem, as a
warning.  Whether it warns you about the problem or not, it'll still
read the file from the ".ethereal" subdirectory of your home directory.