Some operating systems hold two levels of system settings. Some settings are specific to an individual user and are used only when that user is logged on; these settings are called current user settings. Some settings are global to the computer, and are available to all users; these are called local machine settings. You must have administrator permissions on your computer to change local machine settings.

SQL Anywhere respects both current user and local machine settings. On Windows XP, for example, these are held in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER key and the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key, respectively.

Current user takes precedence

If a setting is made in both the current user and local machine registries, the current user setting takes precedence over the local machine setting.

When local machine settings are needed

If you are running a SQL Anywhere program as a service, you should ensure that the settings are made at the local machine level.

Services can continue to run under a special account when you log off a computer as long as you do not shut the computer down entirely. They can be made independent of individual accounts, and therefore need access to local machine settings.

In addition to SQL Anywhere programs, some web servers run as services. You must set local machine settings for Apache or IIS to work with such a web server.

In general, the use of local machine settings is recommended.