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I’m interested in knowing what type of databases are used by dekstop applications?
Are they normally embedded databases or just plaintext and xml files?
I cant see any database server requirements for the programs which I install? So how can they save their data?
No two programs are exactly the same, and it is entirely dependant on the storage requirements of the application.
If it needs a full RDBMS, applications tend to use embedded database platforms such as SQL Server Compact or SQLite. These are both components that are embedded into the application itself, and do not require an external server to be running to provide common database functionality such as SQL Querying.
On the flip side, if the data is lightweight or mostly textual, you could simply use a flat file storage system as mentioned such as XML.
Note that for some of my applications where performance is required, I’ve opted to use SQL Server LocalDB, which is an installable dependency but allows user-instances of databases to be loaded up on the fly, rather than a full installation of SQL Server Express that runs as a service and hosts databases permanently.