You probably might want to put that in a non-preset setting file somewhere.

exactly what im doing....

with the complication that the Preload size is actually being set in another executable, the "player", so now when the Full instrument Expansion gets loaded I say this in the init:

      for(i = 0; i < NUM_SAMPLERS; i++)
	{
		if((instrumentMetadata.instrumentSettings.PreloadBuffer * 1024) != TheSamplers[i].getAttribute(TheSamplers[i].PreloadSize))
		{
			TheSamplers[i].setAttribute(TheSamplers[i].PreloadSize, instrumentMetadata.instrumentSettings.PreloadBuffer * 1024);
		}
	}

only question is -- do I need to wait for everything to load before checking this?

AFAIK the sample loading is deferred until the plugin is initialised, so if you load a DAW project, it will not load the default preload size, then reload them again, but wait until everything is setup and then load the samples with the one preload size you set it to.

You probably might want to put that in a non-preset setting file somewhere.

how is this new setup saved? part of a preset?