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How do i change where Wireshark stores profiles?

asked 2023-01-23 12:23:14 +0000

IanP gravatar image

updated 2023-01-23 18:40:41 +0000

Guy Harris gravatar image

My windows %HOME% folder is on a network drive which is not always available, so Wireshark cannot find my profiles, and hangs. I cannot fix %HOME% (not under my control), so I want to point Wireshark at another folder, e.g. c:\Users\Username

But I cannot find a menu in Wireshark that does this, probably because it would staore my choice in %HOME%, catch 22.

I cannot find something in the Windows Registry (with regedit) (oddly enough I am allowed to do this).

How can I configure Wireshark to use a different folder?

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What does

set APPDATA

print in a Command Prompt window?

Guy Harris gravatar imageGuy Harris ( 2023-01-25 09:12:13 +0000 )edit

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answered 2023-01-23 15:47:52 +0000

Chuckc gravatar image

Is there a way to change the default location of the personal config folder?

From the Wireshark man page:

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

WIRESHARK_CONFIG_DIR

This environment variable overrides the location of personal configuration files. It defaults to $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/wireshark (or $HOME/.wireshark if the former is missing while the latter exists). On Windows, %APPDATA%\Wireshark is used instead. Available since Wireshark 3.0.

C:\Users\xxx\foobar1>set | findstr /I wireshark_config_dir
WIRESHARK_CONFIG_DIR=C:\Users\xxx\foobar1
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Even better!

cmaynard gravatar imagecmaynard ( 2023-01-23 16:38:09 +0000 )edit

Set as a user env variable. Thanks!

IanP gravatar imageIanP ( 2023-01-23 18:52:01 +0000 )edit
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answered 2023-01-23 14:52:06 +0000

cmaynard gravatar image

Wireshark doesn't use %HOME on Windows. Per the Wireshark man page, "The personal preferences file is looked for in ... %APPDATA%\Wireshark\preferences (or, if %APPDATA% isn’t defined, %USERPROFILE%\Application Data\Wireshark\preferences) on Windows systems."

So if you're able to manually set %APPDATA% to C:\Users\Username, then I think that should work for you; however, if you can't change the environment variable, then you ought to at least be able to do this with by wrapping Wireshark into a batch file, the contents of which is something such as:

@echo off
set APPDATA=C:\Users\Username
"C:\Program Files\Wireshark\Wireshark.exe"
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This worked too, thanks.

IanP gravatar imageIanP ( 2023-01-23 18:52:28 +0000 )edit

You might want to ask your site administrator why %APPDATA% is set to point to the file server rather than to a location on your machine; applications other than Wireshark might also use %APPDATA% as a location in which to store settings and so forth.

Guy Harris gravatar imageGuy Harris ( 2023-01-27 07:31:22 +0000 )edit
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answered 2023-12-31 09:53:26 +0000

BigFatCat gravatar image

updated 2023-12-31 10:17:19 +0000

Windows

  • Control Panel
  • System
  • Advanced System Settings
  • Environment Variables
  • Locate the section user variables for x (x is the current Windows user)
  • Create a new variable with the name WIRESHARK_CONFIG_DIR
  • Create a value for WIRESHARK_CONFIG_DIR by using browse. Locate or create a new folder for your Wireshark profiles.
  • Click OK to accept the values.

Sorry, I don't have enough points to upload an image.

BTW, DON'T FORGET TO BACKUP THIS FOLDER.

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Asked: 2023-01-23 12:23:14 +0000

Seen: 1,251 times

Last updated: Dec 31 '23