Preferences File Issues

[jvedette]

I have Photoshop and Lightroom CC 2017.  I have recently purchased a laptop in addition to my existing desktop and have moved the Lightroom catalogue and photos to an external USB drive so that I can access my catalogue and photos from both computers.  This is all working correctly. All my "User Presets" are also stored with the new catalogue on the external drive.

However I now have two "Preferences" files, one on my Desktop and one on the laptop (CC is installed on both computers). I assume that if I am working on the desktop and change any of the preferences, then this change will not exist when I use the laptop.  I can always copy the desktop Preferences to the laptop.  But can the " Preferences" file also be stored on the external drive so that it is common to both computers?

[dj_paige]

But can the " Preferences" file also be stored on the external drive so that it is common to both computers?

I don't think so.

[johnrellis · Accepted solution]

But can the " Preferences" file also be stored on the external drive so that it is common to both computers?

Not without some low-level hackery, and even then it may not work. 

See here for where the preferences file is stored: Preference file and other file locations | Lightroom CC and 6 .  You could try to use a symbolic link to point from where LR is looking to a location on your external drive.  That has worked for people wanting to change the locations of other LR files.  But it may not work for the preference files, due to the way they're getting written (by an OS X service on Mac, by LR itself on Windows).

Note that symbolic links are different from Mac aliases and Windows shortcuts.  If you're not familiar with them, Google will help.