Installer confuses/mixes per-user and all-user installation

[kriswilk]

MY SETUP:

• Windows 11 Pro w/ all updates
• SharpKeys installed via winget: winget install -e --id "RandyRants.SharpKeys"

THE PROBLEM

SharpKeys is installed in a location common to all users:

%ProgramFiles%\RandyRants.com\SharpKeys\

However, the program shortcuts are placed in the user's private Start Menu:

%AppData%\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\RandyRants.com\SharpKeys

This is a problem if more than one user installs the software, and then one uninstalls it. It leaves dangling shortcuts in all the other users' Start Menus.

SOLUTIONS:

(a) install correctly for ALL USERS by putting the shortcuts in %ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\...
(b) install correctly on a SINGLE USER basis by putting the application in %AppData%, not %ProgramFiles%

[randyrants]

Pretty sure that this was up to the installer, which is held together with duct tape and twine.

The app is going to go into ProgramFiles no matter what. Requires elevated rights, writes to the machine-scoped Registry key - it's the best place for it.

That said, I don't recall telling the installer to put the shortcuts in the per-user section versus telling them to go to ProgramData, which would be machine-wide. My guess is that at some point after the installation scripts were written, Windows opted to move them to a new location, seeing as I think the MSI scripts were written for Windows 7 or 8.1 - I forget which.

First time anyone has filed a complaint against the installer for over 19 years; I guess it can go to the backlog.

[kriswilk]

Thanks for your quick reply! I understand that this is not a high-priority issue (I only noticed by accident). That said, I suspect that the fix is one line somewhere in the MSI config to put the icons in the system Start Menu rather than the user's.

The code for the MSI installer doesn't appear to be in the repo. If it were, I'd try to submit a PR myself.

In any case, thanks for such a simple but useful utility!