Where does Eclipse save the list of files to open on startup?

Question

Question: where does Eclipse store the list of files it opens on startup?

Background: Having installed a plugin into Eclipse which promptly crashed, my Eclipse workspace is in a bit of a state. When started, the building workspace task pauses indefinitely at 20%. Before I uninstall the plugin I want to give it another chance. I have a feeling that the reason Eclipse is pausing is because of a file which was opened when it crashed, which it tries to reopen on startup. If I can stop this file from opening on startup there's a chance I may be able to coax the plugin to behave. The problem is I have no idea where that list of files is persisted between runs of Eclipse.

...a second before I posted this question, I realised I could just delete the file causing the problem (duh). However, the search has frustrated me enough to want to find the answer.

Arcograph

Answer 1

In your workspace the following file contains your workbench information:

.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.ui.workbench/workbench.xml

It is possible to delete it (or edit it but that requires some fiddling around I suppose) without breaking your workspace, the file gets regenerated by Eclipse. When you delete it all workbench related settings are lost (ie all editors are closed), but your projects of that workspace stay intact.

Edit: in Eclipse 4.2 the file is

.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.e4.workbench/workbench.xmi

Squat

+1 and accepted. Doesn't look like a file you'd want to mess with for too much, but removing a troublesome file would be okay. Hopefully this will be more Googleable now :-) – Arcograph

This was really helpful to know, after I renamed my code folder from Blah_trunk to Blah_branch2.1. – Dam

On eclipse Luna 4.4.0, found it on the second path: i deleted the XML entries "<children xsi:type="basic:Part" xmi:id="..." elementId="org.eclipse.e4.ui.compatibility.editor"", and they didn't appear on startup, so each of those elements corresponds ti a file, i guess – Bryonbryony