I've kinda been teaching myself on how to use VB.net and I made a program that stores information for my games and programs. I am using My.Settings to store the information but I found out that after I reformatted my computer and re-installed windows all of the information is gone. So what I want to know how to do is encrypt all of the information that is in My.Settings then save it through the Save Dialog so the user is allow to save the file where ever they want to save it. Then when the user wants to open the file have them select the file and decrypt it and load it back in to the program.

Gee, this sounds familiar. I'm still flabbergasted that the fact that the information is gone after a reformat comes as a surprise. When you format a partition the tool specifically tells you that all data on the volume will be lost.

Anyway, I also don't really understand why you feel encryption is required here. You know that the config file is just plain text, right? The user can open it and read what it contains at any time. I'm not sure why, if it's OK to be in plain view while the app is installed, it's not OK other times. If you're concerned about securing the data in the config file then shouldn't it be encrypted at all times?

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Well I'm not too concerned seeing that I have all the information in text files scattered throughout my storage drive. I just want to be able to save the information, but if I can keep it encrypted and secure at all times I would like to delete the text files that are scattered throughout my storage drive.

If you're interested in securing config data then have a look at this:

Protected Configuration (Encrypting Config Files)

To get the path of the config file in code use:

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2007, 2008, 2009, 2010

Why is my data not saved to my database? | Communicating between multiple forms
MSDN: Data Walkthroughs | "How Do I?" Videos
My Blog: Custom Events | Dynamic GDI+ Drawing