Jon a few things:
Not sure why Manager installs in c: drive instead of program files. I assume that the developer has not got around to setting it to install in program files and I agree with you. This is where it should be. I just assume that its on his list to do.
However, I think that you are confusing what is installed and where. When I installed the program, I think that it installs by default to c:\manager. Thats the program! The users Appdata is where Manager stores the actual data and some other settings.
On my computer, when I run Manager it installs by default to c:\manager which is where Manager is installed and I presume that this is where Manager originally wanted to install the program when I first installed it.
If you click on about Manager - you will see a path to the application data. You can change this to a new location for your user data - ie your businesses and all the transactions within. You will then have to move your userdata (from the old location) to the new location.
In short, what I would recommend is the following: Backup your data. Uninstall Manager. Thsn completely remove manager folders from install location, appdata etc - as in move all these folders to a recovery folder.
Install Manager and it should default to c:\Manager. I would recommend leaving it to that location so you don’t have to change the path every single time unless it picks up that you have installed it in c:\program files which I am assuming is what you are trying to get it to do now. When you have installed Manager, go to about Manager and change the data path so that your data is stored in your documents folder or whatever folder you backup regularly. By installing Manager to its default location, you remove the need to have to go into command prompt etc - until the developer gets around to updating the setup so it installs into program files where it should go.
Msi versus EXE. No disrespect to the developer but his MSI isn’t quite right. A normal MSI would would invoke the run as administrator option when double clicked on. The Manager Msi doesn’t - you have to press shift right click or something to get that to work. You should not need to do this - so I assume that other things are broken with the Msi install. I find it easyist to logout of my usual login and login as admin to install Manager because it doesn’t come up with the administrator credentials popup on my login and I can never remember the shift, ctrl right click syntax!
As an IT Technician I would always recommend using an EXE setup file as MSI installers come with a whole set of problems especially when the new MSI setup file is looking for the old MSI setup file and many other issues. We have had that very issue with Manager as well, although this msi problem is not limited to Manager. I do agree that an exe would be better in this case. Msi’s are very good when you want to deploy software centrally onto loads of computers - then I would go with an msi.
What the developer can do when he is ready to implement it, would be to tell the new setup file to delete c:\manager or c:\program files\manager and install the new version. He can do that for a year or so, and then remove the c:\manager command from the setup file. This would address the issue of moving manager to c:\program files.