A DxWnd profile is the saved bundle of settings for one game — its path, window geometry, and every tab’s choices — and the .dxw file format is how a single profile travels: exported from one DxWnd, imported into another, shared with the community. Profiles are also where beginners lose work: settings tuned for an hour, gone because nobody pressed Save, or stranded when DxWnd was updated carelessly. This guide covers where profiles live, how import and export actually work, what a .dxw does and does not contain, and how to keep a growing library safe. The basics of adding a game are in our guide to using DxWnd; this page is the file-management layer on top.
Where Profiles Live: dxwnd.ini
Your game list and all its profiles persist in dxwnd.ini, in the DxWnd folder itself — DxWnd is portable, so there is no hidden settings database in your user profile. When you choose File > Save, the current state of your list is written to that file. Two habits follow. First, tune a game, get it right, then save — unsaved changes live only until DxWnd closes. Second, dxwnd.ini is your library: copying that one file copies every profile you own, which makes backup trivially easy and makes the file worth treating with respect.
Export and Import: The .dxw File
For a single game, DxWnd speaks .dxw. From the File menu you can export a profile to a .dxw file and import one back — the mechanism by which the community has shared working configurations for years, and the fastest way to benefit from someone else’s hours of tab-tuning. Importing adds the profile to your list; from there it behaves like one you built yourself, including being editable in the settings dialog.
Know what is inside the envelope. A .dxw contains settings: the target path and the option choices from every tab. It does not contain the game, any game files, or anything that makes the title runnable — your recipient needs their own copy of the game installed. It also means an imported profile can point at a path that does not exist on your machine, because the exporter’s game lived somewhere else. Fixing the Path field on the Main tab to your own installation is the normal, expected first step after any import — not a sign the profile is broken.
Backing Up Before You Update DxWnd
Updating DxWnd is extract-over or extract-beside, and both are safe if your library travels with you. The safe sequence: before touching anything, copy dxwnd.ini somewhere outside the DxWnd folder. Extract the new build. If you extracted beside the old one, copy your dxwnd.ini into the new folder; if you extracted over it, confirm the file survived — and if anything looks wrong, your backup restores the whole library in one copy. This is the same backup step our latest version guide builds into its update walkthrough, and it takes ten seconds. The profiles you spent evenings tuning are worth ten seconds.
Profiles from Other Builds: Honest Expectations
Profiles are generally portable across builds — a .dxw made on an older DxWnd will usually import and work on the current one, which is why community profiles from years ago still circulate usefully. “Usually” is doing real work in that sentence, though. DxWnd evolves: an option an old profile relies on may have been renamed, regrouped or superseded, and a profile written against a much older build can import with settings that no longer mean quite what they meant. The correct posture is import, then test, then adjust — treat an imported profile as a strong starting draft, not a guarantee. If an imported configuration misbehaves, rebuild from a clean profile and re-apply its ideas one at a time; the not working checklist is the ordered way to do that. Before experimenting on a profile that already works, export it first — your own known-good .dxw is the perfect undo button.
presets.ini: The Bundle’s Own Starting Points
The download also ships presets.ini alongside the program — preset configuration material that comes with DxWnd itself, distinct from your personal dxwnd.ini library. Think of the two files as the difference between what the tool brings and what you build: presets are part of the distribution, your ini is yours. You do not need to edit either by hand in normal use — profiles are managed from the GUI — but knowing which file is which explains what to back up (yours) and what a fresh download can replace (the bundle’s).
Sharing Profiles Well
Because a .dxw is only settings, sharing one is safe and genuinely useful — the SourceForge forums attached to the project are full of exactly these exchanges, a working profile posted in reply to a “this game will not window” thread. Share well by including the two facts a profile cannot speak for itself: the edition of the game it was built for (a GOG release and a disc release of the same title can behave differently, and their paths always do) and the DxWnd build you built it on, so the person importing it knows how far the settings may have travelled. A one-line note about what the profile fixes — “windows the game and slows it to normal speed” — turns a bare file into a findable, reusable piece of community knowledge. And when you receive one, the courtesy runs the other way: report whether it worked, since the next searcher will read your confirmation as eagerly as you read the file.
Organising a Big Library
A dozen games in, the list itself becomes the interface, so organise for the future you. Name profiles after the game and the edition or store when you own more than one copy — “Diablo II” is a fine name until a second install arrives and neither profile says which is which. Keep one profile per installation rather than retargeting a shared one. Export a .dxw of every finished configuration into a folder of your own; that folder, plus a copy of dxwnd.ini, is a complete, restorable archive of your compatibility work. And when a game’s settings finally click, that exported profile is also the thing worth sharing back — the community library of .dxw files exists because players did exactly that. New to all of this? Start with the step-by-step guide, and get the current build from our download page.