Mastering ArcGIS Enterprise Administration

Database connections

Regardless of whether you are on a production server or your personal PC, when you create a database connection in ArcCatalog or ArcMap, the .sde connection file gets stored in the user profile of the currently logged on Windows user. In my case, for example, connections in the Database Connections section of ArcCatalog are stored at C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Roaming\ESRI\Desktop10.5\ArcCatalog. Now, while this is a major annoyance of mine, I fully understand why this is like this by design; the software needs a well-known location to be able to store user content, and it has control over its own directories in the user profile, a well-known location. That said, do not store enterprise database connection files for ...