File locations

File locations

Every file or registry entry GamerGuardian reads or writes is listed below. Nothing is hidden in System32, the Windows directory, or any user-invisible location.

On disk

Path	Purpose	Lifetime
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\GamerGuardian\GamerGuardian.exe	Installed app	Until uninstall
%APPDATA%\GamerGuardian\config.json	Your monitor / want / auto-apply preferences	Persists; survives upgrades
%APPDATA%\GamerGuardian\changes.log	Append-only audit of every applied change	Auto-rotates at ~1 MB → changes.log.1
%TEMP%\gamerguardian_error.log	Unhandled-exception stack traces (rare)	Auto-rotates at ~1 MB → .log.1
%TEMP%\gamerguardian_selftest.txt	Output of GamerGuardian.exe --test	Overwritten each run
%TEMP%\GamerGuardian-Setup-x.y.z.exe	Installer downloaded by the auto-update flow before it launches	Auto-cleaned on next launch if older than 1 day

If you see leftover GamerGuardian-Setup-*.exe files in %TEMP% from before v0.1.20, you can delete them — they were the previous auto-update flow's downloaded installers. v0.1.20+ cleans them up automatically.

In the registry

Key	Purpose	When written
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\GamerGuardian	Launch-at-startup entry	Created/removed by the Launch at Windows startup checkbox

GamerGuardian modifies additional Windows registry locations as part of applying settings — but those are the user's own settings (HAGS, Memory Integrity, etc.), not GamerGuardian's data. The full list of mechanism keys is in Logging and in SettingDocs.cs.

Single-instance enforcement

GamerGuardian uses a named mutex GamerGuardian.SingleInstance to ensure only one copy runs at a time. A second launch silently exits.

What GamerGuardian does not touch

• System files / DLLs in C:\Windows\
• The hosts file
• Network adapter settings
• Browser settings or extensions
• Any file under another user's profile
• Any HKLM key not listed in Logging's mechanism table