One thing that continues to bug me about some software is that by trying to be user-friendly and idiot-proof, assume they can just make choices for you. Like where to install the software and where to store the files or databases created by it.
The installation folder for example is something I like to choose myself. I also do not like it when everything is just stored by default under the “Documents and Settings” folder. It might be common policy, but some databases or files just grow to damn big to be stored right there.
TomTom backups for example. The damn things go in your Documents folder FFS. Or the Picasa picture database. Too damn big I tell ya! It’s bad enough already that Windows keeps downloading service packs and Internet Explorer updates and stores them by default somewhere on the system drive. But if everyone starts stuffing it’s data on the classic C-drive where your temp-folder and your profile folders are also located you’ll be running out of disk space in no time.
So please think of the poor people out and their limited hard-drives and put one of those nifty questions in there that allows you to select a folder where you want them to put your stuff. You know what? You can even suggest a default location if you don’t want to bother the user with making choices. How awesome is that? I think I’ve even seen that a few before actually.
Photo by scottog, cc-licensed