When manual updating, way to keep current saved variables?

[Sp00sty]

Sorry I searched on "update" "saved" and "variables" but didn't find a thread or a sticky.

I still can't get Minion to work for me so I'm still manually updating all my addons.

When we manually paste the new folder in, and it asks to merge, I have been allowing all.

Does this affect the saved variables upon restarting the game? Does it immediately grab the newest *settings/mod*.lua and overwrite my saved variables?

Is there a trick to keep from having to reset everything on each character again?