Skype shared configuration

The configuration of Skype that is not related to a specific account is saved within shared.xml file. On *nix systems that file is located in the ~/.Skype directory. The configuration file is clearly XML based.

Much of this file, although stored in textual form, is non-the-less binary. Most notably  consists of subtags named _D (where D is a decimal number), and within these tags there large blocks of Hex strings (A-F are written in capitals). Other binary tags are,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,.

CSV is also sometimes stored in some tags, such as  and.

Locking is done via an empty shared.lck file that is created in the same directory as shared.xml.