The (My) Documents folder - Why not?
#1
Applications should not run under the Documents folder.

OK, that's a bolder statement, it's just to be expected some argument to backup it.

Let's understand then, what lead to this advise was the 'original' install folder was the C:\Program Files or it's kin (x86). The reason being These folders have special protection policy.

So it is comprehensible the Documents folder seems to be a good candidate, hence the user has total access to it. That's true, of course but far from a solution and let us try to understand why:

The documents folder is still a protected folder, it is actually more protected than the Program Files that is so only after Vista while the Documents folder always was a protected folder, in XP and even win9x. By principle only the user him/herself has full access to it, not even The Administrator is supposed to have that access (albeit this account can change the access policies there).

But, if the user has full access what is the problem?
That's the correct question and the answer is: An application is NOT the user. An application is supposed and allowed to place files there, like the ini files, saves and so on. These files are given ownership to the user and seen as coming from him/her.

But an application running under the Documents folder can have some actions denied, negated or disallowed, like creating temporary files and a pletora of others problems (do you remember being asked to give access in the firewall for this and that program instead in a user basis?), running them there is not that different from running from Program Files although the policies are not exactly the same.

So, in the end the old RUN as DA Administrator needs to accompany the advise, and may not be enough since there is no sensible and easy way to preview and give explicit permission to create tmp files and whatever other action the application can have negated. And the final result will lead to changing Permission policies and given Administrator full rights there and this is very BAD idea.

Still, the Very, the Real intention here is to say all these permissions related issues and problems are gone by simply installing outside any protected folder, installing under any user created folder, something as simple and easy as
creating a C:\Games or a C:\Emulator, the name does not matter at all, can be in another partition or another disk, like E:\WhateverName.

Such folders are not object/subject of special policies, they have by nature enough rights for authenticated users, and even limited access for the users group, what is enough to prevent issues for almost everything running from them...

It's that simple, Using a Non Specially Protected folder is answer for all those access related issues and source of none, why complicate things?

PS: Must be understood than allowing an application to place it's controls in the Documents folder is fine, it's a standard actually although not obligatory... so it's OK leaving the paths in PCSX2 pointing to it... just is not good installing PCSX2 there, or whatever else game or application for what matters.

A final word for those who are changing/reinstalling/moving applications... make sure the paths in the inis (only the PCSX2.ini keeps local paths in this particular case) points to the new location. The better is deleting them completely and letting the application to rebuild them. Failing in doing this may appear as 'strange' behavior or the application does not working at all. Of course applications that changes the register can't just be moved but that's another story.
Imagination is where we are truly real
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