Is AppData now the 'correct' place to install user-specific apps (which modify their own data)?

Question

I\'m probably just being very thick here, but it\'s not clear to me where I\'m supposed to install \'new\' user-specific programs on Windows 7 (and presumably Vista too,

Answer 1

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that user-specific program files is just asking for trouble and is a damn stupid thing to do.

A much more sensible approach is to install different versions of your program to:

\Program Files\Your Program\Program_v0.1\Program.exe
\Program Files\Your Program\Program_v0.2\Program.exe
\Program Files\Your Program\Program_v0.3\Program.exe
\Program Files\Your Program\Program_v0.4\Program.exe

I would then place a bootstrapping launcher at:

\Program Files\Your Program\ProgramLauncher.exe

Then, the user application data folder will only contain data, including an INI/XML/Settings file that indicates the version of the program that this user is working with.

Such an approach satisfies the core tenant of keeping data and executing code separate, allows every user to run a specific version of the code, and offers a small amount of de-duplication by ensuring the same executable code is not copied multiple times across user folders.

Otherwise, go right ahead with installing programs to AppData and undoing the years it has taken us to achieve clean separation of code and data. I found this thread because I noticed that Chromium and DropBox are installing code to AppData. I'm going to uninstall those program, and change the permissions on my AppData folder to exclude execution to ensure I can easily spot other programs attempting the same BS.