Monday, July 19, 2010

Eclipse/p2 configuration data of multi user installation

Eclipse (so is any application based on it) provisions separate configuration data for multi-user installations.
When there are multiple users on Windows7/Mac, then Eclipse maintains separate config data for each user. Each user's configuration data is stored at C:\Users\\[userName]\\.eclipse\\[productName]\\configuration\.settings and Administrator's configuration data points to config folder of the Eclipse installation directory itself.
So, when Eclipse is run as Administrator on Windows 7, there *might* be difference in the workspace selection depending upon the configuration data stored.
This configuration data corresponds to the location where Eclipse stores essential runtime metadata (such as information about the set of plug-ins installed) and cached data such as default/recent workspaces in general.