Vista Weirdness - Directory exists via an installer, but not in Explorer

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 Is this some out of date index used by the installer to list directory contents or some weird Vista registry thing?



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

Aerofoil 0.1.2 Update

I've made a notification bubble change to Aerofoil based on an idea from one user (sorry I haven't your name or original email anymore - email me again and I'll add it). Aerofoil now shows a notification bubble when Aero decides to change it's state or the power status changes. In addition, it sports a new modern looking icon and the code has been improved to cater with error states better and to ensure the correct menu options are always shown (something else may have changed Aero's state without an event being fired - such as hibernate/resume).

Final 1.4 version available here

You can download the update here or C# source code here

DON'T UPDATE QUICKPLAY TO 3.3 !!!

On my HP notebook I've just had the misfortune of using the built in HP QuickPlay update to update it to revision 3.3, this is software written by a company called Cyberlink who don't provide support unless you are a member.

When you "update" to version 3.3 via the application (not via HP's site or HP update) it will DOWNGRADE, let me just stress that again,

DOWNGRADE

the software so you can no longer view media files, use your built in HP web cam etcetera.

Rolling back via System Restore is futile (the app doesn't restore - nothing works at all now) and even reinstalling 3.0 or 3.2 still leaves you with just DVDPlay (the DVD playing part of Quickplay).

Frankly I am very pissed off at just wasting 5 hours in vain trying to restore the web cam functionality in Quickplay but 3.3 does something to prevent you restoring it.

If anyone knows how to fix this drop me a comment, personally I am no longer using Cyberlink's products and I'll be advising friends the same.