Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] Modify default settings?

From: Jeff Morriss <jeff.morriss.ws@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2011 09:26:14 -0500
Stephen Fisher wrote:
On Fri, Feb 04, 2011 at 03:03:04PM +1100, Martin Visser wrote:

One other default I think we should change is around TCP checksums. It seems so many people are now using NICs with various chimneys and offload processing that we get a lot of "false positives" from new users in the forums and the mailing list.

We turned off TCP and UDP checksum verification a few years ago:

  http://anonsvn.wireshark.org/viewvc?view=rev&revision=24778

(based on the date, this probably first showed up in version 1.2)

Keep in mind that if a user had _ever_ saved his/her preferences before that change was made, they now have TCP checksums turned on... Until they manually turn them off.

But, starting in 1.4, when you save/apply the preferences only those which are NOT set to the default value (for that preference) are written to the preferences file (actually they are all written to the file but those whose value is the default are commented out). That means any preference defaults that we change now will actually take effect for the vast majority of users--everyone except those who had changed that particular preference.