How do I reset my Eclipse environment configuration to use default settings

How do I reset my Eclipse environment configuration to use default settings?

Answer
The Eclipse IDE has both workspace specific settings and generic IDE settings.

The workspace settings are saved inside the workspace folder which is specified when Eclipse starts up the first time. These settings are saved in a folder called ‘.metadata’ inside the workspace location. You can change the location of the workspace in Eclipse by using the ‘File’ menu and then clicking on the ‘Switch Workspace’ option.

Note: If you delete your workspace folder you will also delete projects located inside this folder. If you wish to preserve your projects only delete the ‘.metadata’ directory.

Eclipse will save all the non workspace specific settings in a different location. This will depend on whether you are using a Linux or Windows environment.

Windows*: C:Documents and Settings<user>Application DataARMARM Workbench IDE
Linux: /home/<user>/.awide

You can safely delete the configuration folder to force Eclipse to start up using the default settings. Eclipse will re-create the configuration folder with all the configuration files.