As of 4D v12, the 4D Preferences have been split into 2 seperate dialogs: Preferences and Settings. Along with this change, it is also now possible to edit the Preferences without opening any database. So to open the Preferences, all you need to do is open 4D or 4D Server and the Preferences menu item will be enabled.

This is possible because the options in the Preferences dialog specify the behavior of the 4D applications and are not database specific. Note, the Settings dialog contains settings that are database specific, so this dialog can not be accessed until a database is opened.