Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005: Applied Techniques Step by Step

Where to Store User Settings

Often an application needs to store data about the user’s experience. In Web applications, this is typically accomplished using cookies (small text files that store user information), but with increased security on the Web, this can be troublesome. If you use some type of user identification, you can store user settings in a database. This will allow you to manage those settings without relying on client computers. There are a variety of user settings that can be stored. You can store settings as XML data, which gives you maximum flexibility. We’ll discuss storing XML data later in this chapter. You can also use standard data methods of tracking user settings. When you use SQL Server to store the user’s settings, ...