Hello, I've been a Mac user for 20 years and have a new W7 HP laptop. I have used XP machines before so I am somewhat familiar with the Windows operating system. I want to locate and backup the settings files for my applications to a USB drive. I do not want to make a complete backup. Just the settings files. My problem is, I don't know where these are stored in W7 or how to identify them. Does W7 store these in a common location, equivalent to the Preferences Folder and Application Support Folder on a Mac? Or in the app's folder itself? What standard file extension(s) or filename(s) are used for these files? I know these are probably trivial matters for longtime Windows users! Thanks for helping out a relative newbie! David in Arkansas

AFAIK, this depends of the running application. There is applications that store some of their settings in registries (use regedit to check registry entries). For more information, contact your application vendor Technical Support. This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees , and confers no rights. Microsoft Student Partner Microsoft Certified Professional Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator: Security Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer: Security Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuration Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure, Configuration