Launching MetaEditor

Upon the trading platform installation, MetaEditor shortcuts appear in the Start menu and the desktop. You can also launch the editor using metaeditor.exe file in the platform installation directory.

If you select an executable program in the trading platform's Navigator and press Enter or click Modify in its context menu, MetaEditor is launched and the source code of this program is opened there at once (if it is present).

Main launch mode #

Starting from MS Windows Vista, applications installed to Program Files are not allowed to store their data in the installation folder by default. All data should be stored in a separate Windows user directory. This is the main operation mode.

Thus, if MetaEditor (the trading platform) is installed in the Program Files directory and user rights to write to that directory are limited, it is run in the main mode. The main mode is also used in the following situations:

• If the UAC (User Activity Control) system is enabled.
• If remote connection to a computer is used (RDP, Remote Desktop Protocol).

In this mode, the editable files are stored in a specific Windows user directory, and the immutable files are stored in Program Files. The MetaEditor executable file is also immutable, while all files in the MQL4/MQL5 directory (trading robots, indicators, scripts, source files for programming), as well as metaeditor.log are editable.

All the editable files of the platform are stored in the following directories (depending on the operating system used):

Microsoft Windows XP SP3:

• C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\MetaQuotes\Terminal\instance_id\

Microsoft Windows Vista and higher:

• C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\MetaQuotes\Terminal\instance_id\

Here 'C' is the logical drive letter on which Windows is installed, "username" is the account name in the operating system under which the platform has been installed, "instance_id" is a unique identifier generated based on the path to the directory where the platform is installed.

For quick access to these folders, use the Open Data Folder command in the File menu. Each data folder contains a special text file origin.txt. This file contains the path to the platform installation folder, which corresponds to this data directory.

Portable Mode

When installed to Program Files, the platform and MetaEditor work in the main mode described above by default. All data are stored in a special Windows user directory. However you can force the platform and MetaEditor to store its data in the installation folder. To do it, run the platform in the portable mode. To use this mode, start MetaEditor from the command line with the additional /portable key. For example, "C:\Program Files\MyTerminal\metaeditor.exe /portable".