How to create and save profiles?

Thanks. I had already read the UG section on profiles to no avail but your article cleared things up for me. From that I learned that the sequence for me is to create a profile then configure WS the way I want it to behave for that profile. I was going about that backwards, configuring WS first then trying to create/save a new profile.

One question remains for me, once I've created a new profile and configured WS is the new configuration updated each time I alter something (e.g. add a display column), or are the profile changes updated at some later time such as when exiting WS or starting a new capture?

The new configuration is updated right away.
See C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\Wireshark\Profiles\your_profile\preferences

Note
When you have multiple instances of Wireshark running at the same time, the changes are not updated in the other instances right away.
To update them, you can for instance:
- close and open the file in the other instance
- switch to the default profile and back to your_profile
Thank you:)