INI File option to set Registry use and default settings.

Can an INI file option be added so that winSCP configures itself to use the registry for it ssettings and also imports the contents of the INI file.

This would be useful for business environments to enable them to set up WinSCP, putty etc on a central server with default setings and still allow the users to modify them to their own needs.

Ideally it would be possible to ustilize BOT registry (for the users setings) and the INI file for common settings but the question then is does the INI file override the user or is it just a starting point :wink:

You can just import predefined registry settings on winscp installation.

martin wrote:

You can just import predefined registry settings on winscp installation.

But we dont actually want to install it!

We just want to be able to run it directly from a network share and have the software read the ini file initially (as designed). On reading the ini file there should be an entry in it which tells the software to use the registry from then onwards. The ini file would contain the entries such as location of supporting software (putty, etc), proxy settings and maybe some standard connections.

This would allow us to have a centrally maintained copies of WinSCP, putty and the other supporting applications. We dont need the associations etc..

If you're going to go down this route, the correct behavior is to store default settings in the local machine part of the registry, and user overrides of those defaults (plus additional per-user settings) in the user part of the registry. The INI-equivalent would, I suppose, be to have two INI files (like what Opera does) to specify defaults and user-selected configurations.

That said, Traveller can work around the problem by starting WinSCP on the network share via a small script. If using INI files, the script would check if the INI file already existed and if not, copy it into place. Then (or if the INI file already existed) start WinSCP. If using the registry path, the small script would do a reg query to see if WinSCP settings were already present for the user. If not, reg add or reg load could be used to create default settings before starting WinSCP. Or... what's wrong with just using an installer?

Thanks for your post. This issue has been added to tracker.