I recently had to re install my OS and re-install iMatch. No problem - my database is stored on Portable SSD so I just re pointed to it.
However it got me thinking - are there any settings, preferences, user created that will be lost in this situation? If so is there a procedure to ensure user settings can be exported and imported so not to lose anything?
When you made a fresh installation of the OS on your and wiped the disk, all you settings are gone. To avoid this, there is a special section in the Imatch helpsystem explaining how to move everything to a new PC:
https://www.photools.com/help/imatch/index.html#how-to-move-imatch-to-a-new-computer.htm
Ah - seems obvious now ! I of course regularly use Pack and Go so I suspect I could have retrieved easily. However now I have added images, played around with relations etc so now is bit too late. I will remember this next time.
I see the settings are saved by default in config folder on C drive. Can I point this to a folder on non system drive so that after a OS install all the setting will still be there? I guess this is another option than restoring from Pack and Go. Or does this still leave some uncertainty in getting back to exact original settings?
You can, if you really, really have to, change the locations of the settings database and the presets folder in Edit > Preferences > Application. But it's best to keep things where they belong.
You should backup the entire Program Data folder every day anyway, because it contains important and often precious data from all your applications. After re-installing Windows, restoring the contents of this folder from the last backup is pretty much standard. Else all your application data will be lost (if you had to replace or wipe the disk).