I can only hope your right about the accessibility of the "Program Files" folder, but honestly, if MS was going to change this, I think it would have happened by now.

Here's an interesting link regarding apps that don't work in Vista...

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=19

Not sure about storing data files in the AppData folder for the user either because it means that other users on the same computer won't have access to it.

John


>Well using the User folder is the safest way because you're guaranteed the user will have full rights there...
>
>I've never been a fan of storing data there, though because it's hard to browse the data there, but I suppose it is the standard location where most application store their data. It also allows for portable profiles, so if you're using shared profiles you can sync them to a server and access from any machine potentially.
>
>Still, I think that by the time Vista ships Program Files wilil likely have a different security configuration, so it's probably less drastic of a problem as it seems at this time. I just can't see that this would go through as it would break a huge number of existing applications.
>
>+++ Rick ---
>
>
>
>
>>>>As an example, Quickbooks saves it's data files in the "Program Files\Intuit\Quickbooks" folder. Of course, you can change this but that's there default and I'm sure there are lots of Quickbooks users that have their data files sitting right there.
>>>
>>>What's this problem exactly?
>>>
>>>Just about any existing application does this and this will work just fine in the default Vista installation which allows the local users access there.
>>>
>>>(checking...)
>>>
>>>Hmmmm... this is a bit odd. I just checked my Program Files folder permissions and there's no Authenticated Users group. This group exists and has most but not all locations on the drive marked with full access. All my private off root folders have it.
>>>
>>>However, Program Files does not, which seems really odd.
>>>
>>>In a default Vista install the user will show up as a 'pseudo' Administrator and will have full rights to the program files folder (which is I suppose why this works for me here).
>>>
>>>I suspect this will still change. I just can't see that MS would lock down Program Files in this way which would be a complete upgrade disaster. 90% of applications out there require some sort of write access in the installation folder if for nothing else than writing minimal configuration data.
>>>
>>>
>>>+++ Rick ---
>>
>>
>>We've concluded that we are going to make our next release (due out in January, 2007) work for Win 2000, XP, and Vista all the same way. Almost...
>>
>>Here's a summary of our approach.
>>
>>We test for the USERPROFILE environmental variable. If it doesn't exist, then we are using a Windows version prior to 2000 and we will store our system and configuration files in the application folder in Program Files. We will create a temp folder within it for temporary files.
>>
>>For win 2000 and XP... (You can tell this because USERPROFILE environtmental variable contains "Documents and Settings" in it.)
>>
>>System and Configuration files saved in:
>>C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\appprefix
>>
>>Temp files saved in:
>>C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\appprefix\temp
>>
>>For Vista...
>>
>>System and Configuration files saved in:
>>C:\Users\user\AppData\appprefix
>>
>>Temp files saved in:
>>C:\Documents and Settings\user\AppData\appprefix\temp
>>
>>We decided that we needed to change the location for system and configuration files in Win 2000 and XP so that we could debug this prior to switching to Vista. Right now we've only got one computer running Vista.
>>
>>It sounds like you're doing your development on Vista?
>>
>>Any comments about our approach?
>>
>>I've still got a question about where application DATA should be stored. It sounds like they don't want you to put your data on the same drive where Windows Vista is installed, yet this is what we typically do. We have a separate data folder off the root drive for data files. Will this cause a problem for standard users?
>>
>>Best, John