On modernistic versions of Windows, you'll see a "ProgramData" folder on your system bulldoze—commonly the C:\ drive. This folder is subconscious, so you'll only run across it if you bear witness hidden files in File Explorer.

Application Information, the Registry, and Other Places Programs Store Data

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Programs store data in a number of different places in Windows. It depends on how the developers coded the program. They can include:

  • Application Information Folders: Almost applications store their settings in the Application Information folders at C:\Users\username\AppData\, past default. Each Windows user business relationship has its ain Application Data folders, so each Windows user account can have its own application data and settings if programs utilise this folder.

  • Documents Folders: Some applications—especially PC games—cull to store their settings under the Documents folder at C:\Users\username\Documents. This makes it even easier for people to detect, back upwardly, and edit these files.

  • The Registry: Many applications shop various settings in the Windows registry. Registry settings tin can be either organisation-wide or per-user. Even so, the registry is just a place for private settings—applications can't store files or other larger pieces of information hither.

  • The Application's Own Programme Binder: Back in the days of Windows 95, 98, and XP, programs ofttimes stored their settings and other data in their own folders. So, if you lot installed a program named "Example" to C:\Plan Files\Example, that awarding might merely store its own settings and other data files at C:\Plan Files\Example, besides. This isn't slap-up for security. Modern versions of Windows limit the permissions programs have, and applications shouldn't be able to write to system folders during normal operation. However, some applications—Steam, for example—even so store their settings and other data files in their Program Files directory.

What Exercise Programs Store in ProgramData?

There's likewise the ProgramData folder. This binder has most in common with the Awarding Data folders, but—instead of having an individual folder for each user—the ProgramData folder is shared among all the user accounts on your PC.

On Windows XP, at that place was no C:\ProgramData folder. Instead, there was a "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Information" folder. Starting with Windows Vista, the All Users application data folder was moved to C:\ProgramData.

You can nonetheless run across this today. If you plug C:\Users\All Users\ into File Explorer or Windows Explorer on Windows 10, Windows volition automatically redirect you to the C:\Programme Information folder. It'll redirect any program that tries to write to C:\Users\All Users\ to the C:\ProgramData folder, also.

As Microsoft puts information technology, "this folder is used for application data that is not user specific". For example, a plan you utilise might download a spelling dictionary file when you run it. Rather than store that spelling lexicon file under a user-specific Awarding Information folder, information technology should store it in the ProgramData binder. It can and then share that spelling dictionary with all users on the figurer, instead of storing multiple copies in a bunch of different Awarding Data folders.

Tools that run with system permissions may too store their settings here. For example, an antivirus application may store its settings, virus logs, and quarantined files at C:\ProgramData. These settings are then shared system-wide for all users of the PC.

While this folder is conceptually simply an Application Information folder shared for all users of the computer, it'due south also a modern, more secure alternative to the old thought of storing an awarding's settings in its own program folder.

Is There Anything Important to Support in the ProgramData Folder?

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In general, you probable won't find a lot of important settings you need to back up in the ProgramData folder. Virtually programs apply this as a caching location for data that should exist available to all users, or to configure some basic settings.

Your most important application data, if you want to dorsum it upwardly, will likely be stored under C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming. Notwithstanding, if yous're concerned in that location might exist some of import settings or data under the ProgramData binder, y'all might want to get inspect and and see which programs are storing data there. It'due south upwardly to each programme'south developer to choose where that program stores its data, so in that location'south no one-size-fits-all answer.