Where does Eclipse store preferences?

Question

When I change a setting in a window like in the screenshot below, where are those settings actually stored?

Bonus: Is there any way, using Java, Eclipse RCP etc, to

Answer 1

The preferences are stored in prefs files in the workspace at .metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.runtime/.settings. There is one prefs-file for each plugin contributing preferences.

The programmatical access to the entire preferences is done with IPreferencesService the which you may obtain using Platform.getPreferencesService().

You may find more information and examples on how to use them in the Runtime preferences Eclipse help page.