Quote:
Originally Posted by jhowell
Microsoft has long supported both per-machine and per-user software installation contexts. The per-user context isolates the program to a single user, allowing different users to run different program versions, and does not require privilege escalation for installation. |
I just tried two programs that have all users/single user install options. The program installed into Program Files in all 4 test cases. The differences I noted were:
1. The all users installs placed the program data files in a directoy under Program Data while the single user install used a directory in the user's App Data area to store program data.
2. The start menu entry for all users was in Program Data/Microsoft/etc. while the start menu entry for single user was in App Data/Roaming/Microsoft/etc.
I did not check the registry entries created but it's highly probable they used the HKLM or HKCU keys depending on the install type.
This seems to match up with the Microsoft page you mentioned other than the single user program install directory being left as Program Files rather than being set to App Data\Local\Programs which would need Windows 7 or Server 2008 R2 to use.