Quick Tips: Storing preferences and settings per user in a RCP application

Eclipse RCP applications store the prefrences and settings in the workspace. When a RCP application is exported, the workspace is opened within the application folder unless the workspace location is overridden. This will make every user who uses the application to use the same preferences. To enable the preferences and workbench state to be user specific, the default location of the workspace can be configured in the config.ini file as follows.

osgi.instance.area.default=@user.home/eclipseworkspace

Now the preferences and other dialog settings will be written in the user's own workspaces.