The General tab, which is where some of the basic settings can be changed, is displayed. It is likely that you will not need to change any of these specifications initially, but at some point, you may want to alter these default settings. Click on the File Locations tab to display the dialog box in the following screenshot. Again, there is typically no need to change the settings initially, but be aware that SPSS creates temporary files during a session that are deleted when you exit the software.
If you are working with large volumes of data, you may need to direct these files to a location with more space, such as a network drive or an external device connected to your machine:
SPSS maintains a Journal file, which logs all the commands created as you move through various dialog boxes and make selections. This file provides an audit trail of sorts that can be quite useful. The file is set up to be appended and it is recommended that you keep this setting in place. As only the commands are logged in this file, it does not become very large, even over many months of using SPSS.
