managing Filters inside Profile Preferences files

I want to more effectively manage Filters defined within Profiles.

By that, I mean that each of my Profiles tends to contain the same basic set of Filters, plus a bunch which are unique to that Profile, and that I occasionally want to update that common set.

Specifically, %APPDATA%\Wireshark\profiles{name of profile}\preferences contains a section which looks like this:

# Filter Expressions

gui.filter_expressions.label: Me gui.filter_expressions.enabled: TRUE gui.filter_expressions.expr: eth.addr==80:EE:73:43:D6:9C gui.filter_expressions.label: Not Broadcast gui.filter_expressions.enabled: TRUE gui.filter_expressions.expr: not eth.ig==1 gui.filter_expressions.label: Not-Junk gui.filter_expressions.enabled: TRUE gui.filter_expressions.expr: not (browser or db-lsp-disc or ipv6 or ip.dst==224.0.0.0/8 or hsrp or ipx or nbns or rtmp or stp) gui.filter_expressions.label: TAF gui.filter_expressions.enabled: TRUE gui.filter_expressions.expr: (tcp.analysis.flags and not tcp.analysis.window_update) or tcp.flags.reset==1 gui.filter_expressions.label: TCP Reset gui.filter_expressions.enabled: TRUE gui.filter_expressions.expr: tcp.flags.reset==1

When I copy my Profile collection to a new machine (which happens more frequently than I'm enjoying), I manually edit each preferences file and change '80:EE:73:43:D6:9C' to the MAC address of my new workstation. Tedious.

In a perfect world, I would paste this block of 'common' filters into %APPDATA%\Roaming\Wireshark\preferences or perhaps preferences_common; then, they would magically appear in every single Profile ... and life would be good. But, we don't yet have a concept of a 'common' preferences file, per https://www.wireshark.org/lists/wireshark-users/201306/msg00041.html [The approach I'm imagining would also make it easy to add a new filter to every single Profile ... or to update the 'Not Junk' filter, the elements of which are gradually increasing as I encounter more and more 'junk' in my environments ... both currently manual / tedious tasks.]

So I'm headed toward writing a Windows .bat file and a *nix bash script to at least automate replacing '80:EE:73:43:D6:9C' with the MAC address of my new workstation. A little directory traversal, a sed one-liner, not too difficult.

But before I walk this path, I want to float this problem here, figuring that other folks face it too. Has anyone tumbled to a more clever solution than the one I'm envisioning?

--sk