eclipse-metadata

Question : where does Eclipse store the list of files it opens on startup? Background : Having installed a plugin into Eclipse which promptly crashed, my Eclipse workspace is in a bit of a state. When started, the building workspace task pauses indefinitely at 20%. Before I uninstall the plugin I want to give it another chance. I have a feeling that the reason Eclipse is pausing is because of a file which was opened when it crashed, which it tries to reopen on startup. If I can stop this file from opening on startup there's a chance I may be able to coax the plugin to behave. The problem is I

I use multiple workspaces with Eclipse. I recently noticed that some of my workspaces have a lot of cruft in them from software packages that I installed and then later removed. As far as I can tell, the situation is that many packages write stuff (sometimes a lot of stuff) to the .metadata folder for every workspace I open while the package was installed. When I removed a package, it seems to clean out the .metadata folder for the workspace that I happen to have open at the time, but all the other workspaces are left with orphaned metadata. Sometimes this metadata causes problems—often,