Hi,
a lot of questions there, and next to no bloody answers here!
My understanding is that if and/or when you make any alterations to your profile the changes are recorded
in the .ini file. Note that does not include scripts. Thus if in a Mach session you wrote a small script in the PLC script
for instance, then the script would be saved in the PLC script, which is in turn part of the GUI chunk, which is in turn
part of your screen set, which in turn is nominated in your profile.
When you close Mach changes that you have made during the session get flushed to the .ini file.
I would guess that in your last session you did something which was flushed to the file and affected Machs behavior
the next time you started up.
I'm not 100% but I believe there is a mechanism to lock the .ini file to prevent accidental corruption. I'm unsure how
specific it is.
Craig