INI files monitoring settings

The settings of most programs are stored in the registry. However some older programs use .INI files to store settings. An .INI file is in fact a text file. You can open in in Notepad and see the settings contained inside. If you look at an .INI file using Notepad, you will see that it contains something like this:

[Section]

Setting=Value

Another setting=Another value

[Another section]

Yet another setting=value

...

etc.

In fact Windows itself uses two INI files called SYSTEM.INI and WIN.INI for storing some very important settings. These two .INI files contain settings used by Windows when it starts and the registry is not yet available because Windows has not fully loaded yet. These two .INI files are very important - without them, Windows can not start.

Many older programs don't use their own .INI files to store settings. They write their settings to the .INI files used by Windows (SYSTEM.INI and WIN.INI), using their own sections.

The installation monitor records changes to the INI files and can undo the changes made to the INI files by a setup program.

This settings tab allows you to change the options related to monitoring the INI files.

You can monitor all the .INI files stored in the Windows folder (recommended setting because most older programs store their .INI files in the Windows folder) or you can choose which .INI files you want monitored.