![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5obTcLANfrk_r_4ofR81xjNpPYOPjO7P61INUOahCBQoVLOQoHQlLzmcX9NaXLtj2SE43ZHUW2sUCfpDDYawbxfYvFrUm1lueZVx6OD7MmE_s_17jyMK7TgkUxMmeYPAhzgOx/s200/installer.jpg)
This took me a while to figure out - today I went to install Jetspeed Portal Server and it needed access to a specific file, so I browsed to C:/Program Files. See the contents in the first screenshot.
I remember uninstalling Alien Arena 2007 but the directory was still there. Grrr, okay it didn't clean up when I uninstalled it... so I browse to C:/Program Files.... and guess what the directory does not exist - it's not there (see second screenshot).
What the hell? Is this some out of date index used by the installer to list directory contents or some weird Vista registry thing?
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Qihh2Q-hvoECxsQQsZ6_HUOqr2OEkiawIsdxJO9eyzO4ZbKYUvsjiHTaaInoi-ZCVnJNy0MmvPw6FyHnWpYP-rdn7Jtw07ObfiKI6Rsa1SZxO-K728XwZKYRCA0Dy1M9QNDD/s200/explorer.jpg)
No. It is a feature called "VirtualStore". Simply put, older versions of Windows stored user accessible data inside Program Files, which is quite naughty since this should be a secure location and non user accessible (i.e. administrator only). What Vista does is redirect this sort of request invisibly to a user accessible area a "VirtualStore", and the program installs here, typically this is at C:\Users\< your user>\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files. The same goes for the system registry. When you uninstall or delete the program from explorer or by uninstaller it may not necessarily uninstall it from this location - hence the problem of the Alien Arena 2007 directory.
For more details see this useful article