How to burn program into EEPROM without flashing the Arduino ?

spycatcher2k:
Might program an EEPROM editor in C# and use that for uploading to the chip.

This may be of interest...

If you tag data with EEMEM...

uint32_t NumberOfWidgets EEMEM = 0x12345678;

...the Arduino IDE creates an image (named sketch_aug25a.ino.eep in my case)...

:0400000078563412E8
:00000001FF

...that can be burned to EEPROM with the correct incantation of AVRDUDE.

Which makes assigning EEPROM addresses and initializing EEPROM values a breeze (other than having to fiddle with the command line).