To be honest, it is quite complicated now as well with all of the proprietary software

This is the "appdata" folder, this is where all the application's data goes.

So whats the "Programs" folder then?

This is also where the application's data and files go.

But I thought thats the "Programs x86" folder.

This is also where the application's data and files go.

Ok whats "Program Files" then?

This is also where the application's data and files go.

So my config file is in either one if those 4?

No thats in the "Documents" folder, obviously.

Windows program data file structure has always been the wild west.

Don't forget that appdata nowadays has 3 sub folders, local, locallow, and roaming.

Also there's C:\programdata

Also some programs just store it in the user folder, the documents folder, or games/ my games folder if they are a game.

This isn't really accurate for either side. For Linux, I've had crap shove configs in ~, /etc, /var, at least.

On Windows, it could be literally anywhere or in the registry.

I feel mildly aroused when I see a program or a game that collects everything in it's folder and can be used from a USB drive. Some paid, industrial grade software leaves so much traces and depends on so much different hidden files and keys it's making me sick.

Or in /home/username/.applicationname/ if they want to be annoying.

The setting you're looking for could be in %appdata% It could be in %localappdata% It could be in C:\ProgramData. It could be in the registry. It could be in HKLM. It could be in HKCU. It could be in any of the userdirs. It could be in the application's directory.

HA! Joke's on you, it was an envvar all along!

True story.

not seen in this comic: the linux file isn't where the comic/manual/internet nerds says it should be, and there's no realistic way to find it

Oh that setting is super easy to change, just go to run, type in regedit, expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE then just scroll until you find CLSID-73838-abf83-c758d57-87a90ba, set the value to zero and reboot!

Despite what developers do at the end of the day, there are conventions for application directories on every OS.

I just use the directories crate in Rust.

https://github.com/dirs-dev/directories-rs

They don't have config files in Windows. Apps just throw things everywhere without rhyme of reason

windows is simple, all configs are keys accesible via reddit

%appdata%

Some people have diacritics and spaces in their usernames, which wreaks havoc for badly written programs accessing AppData or folders in the user's "home" directory, such as Documents. And there are lots of such programs.

When setting up Windows, use a short and memorable, DOS-compatible username, and then change it later (the home folder will still have the old name). You can then move indiidual Libraries (Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures and Videos) to the root of D:\ too.

Tell that to the file I just dropped in to ~/.steam/debian-installation/steamapps/compatdata/1086940/pfx

Then there's this developer.

Docker: right where you chose to put it.

Shrug don't remember the last time I actually needed to modify a system config file on Windows...

Everyone knows the real power of configuration on Windows is regedit.

Linux is confusing for non IT people looking for program settings. It might be in share, local or config or hidden somewhere. On W 10 I just look under ProgramData. Maybe W11 is different. But Linux application devs need to agree on a single place. As users sometimes need to access it for plugins and resources.

To this day, I still don't know how to set a path variable permanently in any Linux distro

To be fair sometimes configs instead of XDG_CONFIG_HOME(~/.config) are stored in XDG_DATA_HOME(~/.local/share)

For Linux applications that respect XDG? Sure. There are plenty that don't because they either predate that specification, or they just don't care. Linux filesystems are generally much faster at executing reads on many small files, meaning fast search tools like ripgrep and fd make it so I don't really have to care. They'll run through my whole $HOME in 5 seconds flat. There's also stuff like locate, although I don't like maintaining an index. SSDs are so damn fast that I can just rg --hidden --glob '*.toml' 'the_setting_i_want_to_change' ~/ whenever I want.

/etc or /usr/local/etc and done

Have you found appdata/local/Application Data? It's a "conjunction point" that you can only find via the command line, and only exists for backwards compatibility. It points to appdata/... Do not EVER try to gain access over all your files in appdata/. It'll break due to that conjunction point.

There once was a time when configs were not in a universal place like .config. I have terrible memories of trying to fix a gnome setting gone wrong and having to search several files in four different places and just having to firebomb everything.