Technical reference

Registry locations, installer-style commands, and CLI switches (WinDirStat 2.x, per upstream source behavior).

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WinDirStat stores most preferences under your Windows user profile. In portable mode, settings live in an .ini file next to the executable instead of the registry. The snippets below are useful for documentation, deployment notes, and troubleshooting.

Per-user settings (registry)

Standard installs persist UI and scan options under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WinDirStat. Resetting preferences from the application can remove this entire subtree (for example when choosing to clear saved settings on restart).

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WinDirStat

MFC profile path (nested key)

The application framework may store additional profile data under a nested path such as the following (documented in source as part of registry-backed profile support).

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WinDirStat\WinDirStat\

Portable configuration (file, not registry)

If a WinDirStat.ini file exists beside WinDirStat.exe, the program uses that file for settings instead of the registry paths above.

<folder containing WinDirStat.exe>\WinDirStat.ini

Explorer colors (read-only)

To match compressed and encrypted item colors with File Explorer, WinDirStat reads optional binary values (for example AltColor and AltEncryptionColor) from the current-user Explorer key. It does not write these Windows-wide keys.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
  Value names (examples): AltColor, AltEncryptionColor  (REG_BINARY, when present)

Package manager commands

These commands install or upgrade WinDirStat from the community package indexes (no registry edits by the site—your package manager handles registration).

winget install -e --id WinDirStat.WinDirStat
winget upgrade --id WinDirStat.WinDirStat

scoop bucket add extras
scoop install extras/windirstat

Command-line switches (WinDirStat.exe)

Supported flags include CSV export, loading a prior CSV snapshot, and a legacy uninstall helper. Paths may be quoted if they contain spaces.

WinDirStat.exe /savetocsv "C:\Reports\scan.csv"
WinDirStat.exe /savedupestocsv "C:\Reports\dupes.csv"
WinDirStat.exe /loadfromcsv "C:\Reports\previous.csv"
WinDirStat.exe /legacyuninstall

/legacyuninstall is intended for maintenance of older deployments and performs broad cleanup of install locations, shortcuts, and uninstall-registry entries—use only when you understand the impact.

Clearing preferences (in-app behavior)

When the application resets preferences, it can delete the whole HKCU\Software\WinDirStat tree programmatically (API equivalent of removing that key and its values). Portable mode may also remove the adjacent INI when applicable.

reg delete "HKCU\Software\WinDirStat" /f

Run only if you intend to remove saved WinDirStat settings manually; close WinDirStat first.