Questions about read-only Settings

[fanzhongxiang]

Hi, I am a new user of winmerge, and I want to know if I choose read-only when selecting a folder, what will be the impact? Will not select read-only cause the file to be modified when just simply comparing?

[sdottaka]

Whether the read-only option is selected or not, a compare operation will not update files.
If the read-only option is selected, operations that would update the files, such as edit operations and merge operations, will be disabled.