The Settings view is accessible from the main navigation. It contains four tabs: General, Export, Email, and About.
Auto-save reports (default: enabled) — When enabled, every completed audit is automatically saved to the SQLite database. This builds your audit history and enables report comparison for change detection.
If disabled, audit results exist only during the current session and are lost when the tab is closed or the application exits. Disable only if you’re doing one-off audits where history isn’t needed.
Check for updates every time you start the program — When enabled, the application checks for new versions on startup and notifies you if an update is available.
You can also manually check for updates using the Check for updates button at any time.
Get group empty status — When enabled, the application checks whether security groups have members during the audit. Groups with zero members are flagged, which helps identify stale or unused groups in your permissions structure.
This adds a small amount of time to audits but provides useful information for cleanup efforts.
Hide NIS2 features (default: enabled) — Controls visibility of NIS2-related features throughout the application, including the NIS2 Compliance Dashboard on the home screen and the NIS2 Compliance Profile checkbox in the profile editor.
Uncheck this to enable NIS2 features if your organization needs to comply with the EU NIS2 directive. See NIS2 Compliance Report for details.
Enable debug logging — Turns on detailed application logging for troubleshooting. Log files are written to the path shown in the Debug path field.
The default log location is:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\NTFS Permissions Auditor\logs\
Log files use the naming pattern {date}_{level}.txt. A separate file captures Microsoft framework messages. Keep debug logging disabled during normal operations — the log files can grow large, especially during audits with many directories.
If you are upgrading from NTFS Permissions Auditor version 1.x, the Import old data section lets you bring in your profiles, filters, and tasks from the previous version.
Requirements:
The import migrates profiles (with all directories, options, exclusions, and authentication settings), saved filter groups with their conditions, and scheduled tasks.
These settings control default behavior for all exports. Some of these are also accessible directly from the report view’s export options panel.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Include audit metadata in the file header | On | Adds profile information, directories, options, and timestamps to the top of XLSX exports |
| Exclude blank metadata fields | Off | Hides metadata rows that have empty values, keeping the header compact |
| Improve very large data export performance | Off | Disables formatting (headers, column widths, filtering) for faster export with lower memory usage. Use for exports over 100,000 rows |
| Include cell borders | Off | Adds thin borders to all data cells in XLSX. Warning: can cause OutOfMemoryException on reports with 100K+ rows |
| Include ‘Members’ tab | On | Adds a separate worksheet listing all group members |
| Exclude group members from the main tab | Off | Shows only direct permission entries, not expanded group member rows |
See Email (SMTP) Configuration for the complete email setup guide.
Shows the application name, current version number, company information, and icon attribution.
All settings are stored in the SQLite database at %APPDATA%\ntfspa.db. They persist across application restarts and survive reinstallation as long as the database file is preserved.