Jelle Druyts

what about visual studio 2005 and its "Visual Studio 2005" folder?? even after renaming all the paths in the options dialog, it keeps creating an *empty* folder in "my documents". isn't "documents and settings/application data" the place where such things should go to, forXstssake...!

You are not the only one annoyed, indeed!
Thanks for your info, I will annihilate the My eBooks folder tonight.
Anyway, there are many more stoopid programmes, doing the very same thing. Skype puts a nasty folder My Skype Pictures, Visual Studio creates a folder Visual Studio Projects and so on. If you find a more comprehensive way to forbid this garbage, please update your page, I will be monitoring.

Peace!

I fully agree! It seems software companies out there want their application to be everything to everyone. Why can't anyone just make an application that does one thing and does it well?? Aren't the people programming these things users as well? Don't they see how annoying it is to have all kinds of folders polluting their "My Documents"? I use Adobe Reader for one thing: Opening pdf files. I don't want all kinds of folders, shortcuts, processes to speed up the launch etc. all over my computer just for the simple task of opening a stupid pdf file. I have tonnes of other things on my computer as well and if everything thought it had priority (which it does), my computer would be totally bogged down and convoluted (which it is).

Flo is absolutely correct in that application data should be where these files are stored. Perhaps it should be unhidden and more accessible for people, and then software programmers would install their data to the folder where it should go. At the very least if these companies are going to install all kinds of folders to your home directory, they should also give you the option to change it easily in the preferences without having to go into the registry, or other such hackish solutions.

Another problem (sorry if its slightly off topic) is that companies are too proprietary in their implementations, and because of this standards cannot be achieved. Hopefully microsoft gets it right in vista, though somehow I doubt things will change. If corporations won't address the end user's complaints, their users will simply find another solution and they will be up the creek. I jumped on the linux bandwagon a few years ago (I use windows on my laptop for school), and though it can be complicated and is perhaps a bit of a drastic solution, at least they give me options to configure things.

All in all, I suppose the only way to make things happen is to let companies know. If they won't do what it takes to make us happy, then we will go somewhere else. Unfortunately these days, the larger the company you're dealing with, the more it comes down to the bottom line; customer satisfaction only serves increasing profits. Sorry if I sound like a whining retired person, but I think others are as frustrated as I am. Hopefully for all our sake things get better before they get worse. Thanks for listening to my rant. :)