However, each new Win32 build puts in a new "preferences.xml" file with each installation.
When does it overwrite it - during installation? If so I think it's the installer problem, it should keep the old pref file and use it. On Linux, all my builds use the same pref file; if some new preference was added by a build, it gets merged into the old preferences.xml.
Probably the problem is caused by the win build storing its preferences in the program dir (I think) instead of the home dir. I will now commit a fix which you'll need to test on windows. I'm not sure g_get_home_dir() works on windows, but if it does, it's the correct way to solve the problem. It should return the dir in your $HOME environment variable, and if there's none, I think it will return C:.
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