Configuration Storage

You can clean up all configuration data stored on your machine.

You can export your configuration into an INI file using Export button on Preferences dialog. To import the configuration on another location, copy the INI file into the same directory, where WinSCP is installed. You can then change the storage to make WinSCP import the settings from an INI file to the registry.

On startup standalone version of WinSCP looks for INI file in the directory from which it was started. The INI file must have an .ini extension and the same name as WinSCP executable. If it does not find any, it tries to create one with default configuration. If it fails to do so, it uses registry. This allows you to easily carry WinSCP with your configuration on removable media or USB drive.

You may also use INI file in different folder or with different name using /ini switch.

You can configure WinSCP to be completely portable, i.e. make it store all its files and configuration in one place, portable drive (such as USB drive). You can also get WinSCP U3 package, what is preconfigured version of WinSCP for portable usage on U3 USB drive.

WinSCP stores by default some files to local drives:

• Random seed file (file winscp.rnd in yours Documents and Settings folder);
• Temporary files (system temporary folder).

You can force WinSCP to store the files into different location in preferences. You can use paths relative to WinSCP start folder.

To change the storage directly in an INI file to the same location, where WinSCP is started from, set following parameters:

[Configuration\Interface]
RandomSeedFile=.\winscp.rnd
DDTemporaryDirectory=.\

If you use registry as configuration storage, the configuration is stored under following key.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Martin Prikryl\WinSCP 2] 

Learn how to distribute pre-configured version of WinSCP.