4 ms·

The official installation path for Windows being Program Files is no different than the expected installation for the majority of .deb or .rpm files being /usr.

by mhurron 15y ago

The official installation path for Windows being Program Files is no different than the expected installation for the majority of .deb or .rpm files being /usr. In both cases, you can't install software with its default assumption as a unprivileged user. The defaults on both Windows and basically every Linux distribution assume software installs are done by a privileged account. You can install to c:\Users\%USERNAME% if you want to, if the installer lets you pick a path, this is how Chrome installs. Just like you can install into ~/bin if you want to, but you are going to have to go a little out of your way to do it.

huhtenberg 15y ago
Windows is far more riddled with malware and spyware than Linux distros, their users are far more ignorant than the Linux crowd, so having %ProgramFiles% default to a system directory is substantially worse and damaging than letting apt-get (that can't even be run without root privileges) default to /usr. Take a look at a list of predefined paths available on Windows [1]. It doesn't have anything even approximating ~/bin. At the very least they could've said - "here, use %UserProgramFiles% if need be", but they just don't care. And if you try and install into C:\Users\...\Program Files, you will quickly be mis-detected as malware or spyware. Unless you are Chrome, which you are probably not. So, yeah, Windows is really hopeless. [1] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb762494%28v=vs.85%29.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb76...
- zokier 15y ago
  You keep mentioning ~/bin, but I don't think any major distro ships with such thing. So I don't really see how the situation is any better on Linux than it is on Windows. And then Windows has the Folder Virtualization trick. > And if you try and install into C:\Users\...\Program Files, you will quickly be mis-detected as malware or spyware So it's Windows's fault if you use crappy anti-virus applications? If you'd use similar applications on Linux wouldn't it equally flag ~/bin as malware too?

by mhurron 15y ago

huhtenberg 15y ago

Windows is far more riddled with malware and spyware than Linux distros, their users are far more ignorant than the Linux crowd, so having %ProgramFiles% default to a system directory is substantially worse and damaging than letting apt-get (that can't even be run without root privileges) default to /usr. Take a look at a list of predefined paths available on Windows [1]. It doesn't have anything even approximating ~/bin. At the very least they could've said - "here, use %UserProgramFiles% if need be", but they just don't care. And if you try and install into C:\Users\...\Program Files, you will quickly be mis-detected as malware or spyware. Unless you are Chrome, which you are probably not. So, yeah, Windows is really hopeless. [1] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb762494%28v=vs.85%29.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb76...

zokier 15y ago
You keep mentioning ~/bin, but I don't think any major distro ships with such thing. So I don't really see how the situation is any better on Linux than it is on Windows. And then Windows has the Folder Virtualization trick. > And if you try and install into C:\Users\...\Program Files, you will quickly be mis-detected as malware or spyware So it's Windows's fault if you use crappy anti-virus applications? If you'd use similar applications on Linux wouldn't it equally flag ~/bin as malware too?