In Wireshark, you can customize the general appearance to perform the following:

• Identify the default location to open files
• List how many display filters to show
• Define how you want the main toolbar to appear

To make changes to the appearance, go to Edit and then Preferences, which will bring up the dialog box shown in the following screenshot:

In order to see the choices, select the Appearance menu choice. Once the dialog box is open, you have choices where you can make and modify your selections, as follows:

• Remember main window size and placement: If selected, this will retain the window size and placement after you shut down Wireshark. For example, if the main window was the one-quarter size and positioned in the top left-hand quarter of your screen before shutting down, then when you re-open the window, it will appear in the same location and size.

• Open files in: Wireshark allows you to point to a location to open files. The default is The most recently used folder; however, if you have a standard preference for packet captures, then you might want to choose This folder, and then select Browse... to select the appropriate folder.
• Show up to: When working with files in Wireshark, this is where you would indicate how many recent files to keep visible when you go to File, and then Open Recent. In addition, you can also select how many filter entries to display. In the screenshot captioned as Wireshark Preferences dialog box—Appearance, I have selected 10 filter entries and 10 recent files to display.
• Confirm unsaved capture files: If this is checked, then before closing the application or opening another file, Wireshark will ask you if you want to save the captured packets, as shown here:

• Main toolbar style: The main toolbar is across the top, underneath the menu choices. You can alter the appearance to display as Icons only, as shown in the following screenshot:

You can also alter the appearance to display Icons only, Text only, or even Icons and text, as shown here:

• Language: When installing Wireshark, the wizard prompts you to select a language. In the Preferences panel, Use system setting is the default. However, the developers have added a powerful feature: the ability to select from a variety of languages, including Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Polish.

Now that we have set up our workspace, we can examine ways to generate a custom configuration profile, which is a unique set of preferences and configurations.