Ooo, good question!  Well, it seems that some settings are kept from what I remember.  To be on the safe side, I have a batch script that I run that sets everything after I've installed Server.  The plus side of this is that there is self-documentation of what (and where) changes were made.

What makes checking difficult is that there is no 'feedback' with tabadmin.  For example, one can use the DOS command "date" to change the system date of the computer, however, if one simply types in the word "date" and hits the ENTER key, the date will be returned.  Feedback.  (I don't know the technical name but someone can let us know it )

Maybe we need this as an Idea, where entering just the tabadmin command by itself will return the current value.  Tabcmd should do the same (except for passwords, obviously ).

Here's my script:

@ECHO OFF
REM  by Toby Erkson 20May2013
REM  Set QA Tableau Server v.8 settings for high extract environment.
REM  No inputs required.

ECHO %Stopping server...
tabadmin stop
REM  Turn on echoing to show what's being changed.
@ECHO ON

REM Longest allowable time for completing an extract refresh, in seconds (7200 seconds = 2 hours)
tabadmin set backgrounder.querylimit 7200

REM Longest allowable time for updating a view, in seconds (900 seconds = 15 minutes).
tabadmin set vizqlserver.querylimit 900

REM Number of minutes of idle time after which a VizQL session is discarded.
tabadmin set vizqlserver.session.expiry.timeout 10

REM The number of minutes of idle time before a sign-in to the web application times out.  60 minutes
tabadmin set wgserver.session.idle_limit 60

REM Browser allowed to automatically complete password fields
tabadmin set wgserver.password_autocomplete.enabled true

REM Change the name in tooltips and messages
tabadmin customize name "QA Server"

REM Change the logo images, large up to 160 x 160 px
tabadmin customize logo "D:\Application\Tableau\big_logo.jpg"

REM Change the logo images, small up to 32 x 32 px
tabadmin customize smalllogo "D:\Application\Tableau\small_logo.jpg"

REM Updating ONLINE.TMS maps file...
copy /Y "D:\Application\Tableau\Scripts\Online.tms" "D:\Application\Tableau\Tableau_Server\8.2\vizqlserver\mapsources"

@ECHO OFF
ECHO Configuring the server, please wait...
tabadmin configure
ECHO Starting the server...
tabadmin start
ECHO Done!

tags:  tabsvc.yml server_setting

Upvoted that immediately

Ditto.

Using tabadmin set changes values in the \config\tabsvc.yml file.  That tabsvc.yml file, therefore, is generally (well, mostly) a list of all the settings that are different from a default installation's.

If you are doing a standard same-machine upgrade, the settings should be retained across upgrades because 1)the tabsvc.yml file is left in place after an uninstall, and 2)the backup that's taken automatically during uninstall and that is subsequently restored during re-install also contains the config in it.

The ways the spring to mind that the config would not be retained is if you 1)wiped the Tableau Server directories prior to install, 2)changed the installation path, or 3)if you restored a backup with the --no-config option (which specifically tells the restore to ignore the config file, and to continue using whatever config the server is currently running under).