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<topic xml:lang="en-us" id="vboxconfigdata-global">
  <title>Global Settings</title>
  
  <body>
    <p>
        In addition to the files for the virtual machines,
        <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> maintains global configuration data in the
        following directory:
      </p>
    <ul>
      <li>
        <p><b outputclass="bold">Linux and Oracle Solaris:</b><filepath>$HOME/.config/VirtualBox</filepath>.
          </p>
      </li>
      <li>
        <p><b outputclass="bold">Windows:</b><filepath>$HOME/.VirtualBox</filepath>.
          </p>
      </li>
      <li>
        <p><b outputclass="bold">macOS:</b><filepath>$HOME/Library/VirtualBox</filepath>.
          </p>
      </li>
    </ul>
    <p>
        <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> creates this configuration directory
        automatically, if necessary. You can specify an alternate
        configuration directory by either setting the
        <codeph>VBOX_USER_HOME</codeph> environment variable, or on
        Linux or Oracle Solaris by using the standard
        <codeph>XDG_CONFIG_HOME</codeph> variable. Since the global
        <filepath>VirtualBox.xml</filepath> settings file points to all
        other configuration files, this enables switching between
        several <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> configurations.
      </p>
    <p>
        In this configuration directory, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> stores its
        global settings file, an XML file called
        <filepath>VirtualBox.xml</filepath>. This file includes global
        configuration options and a list of registered virtual machines
        with pointers to their XML settings files.
      </p>
  </body>
  
</topic>
