Originally posted by: bryanW1995
um, anybody know why the **** we are forced to use two separate directories?  I understand that it is vista related, but, um, WHY did they do this?  also, why is the program data directory hidden by default?
		
		
	 
With the v6-clients, the access-rights got screwed-up if data-directory was installed under program-directory, this could lead to instances there BOINC-client didn't work correctly. It's also possible got some problems with migrating to/from v5-clients.
To not run into these problems, the BOINC-installer was changed to deny data-directory residing under the program-directory. There's also a couple other places it's not allowed to install BOINC, it's not allowed to use the root-directory as either data or program-folder, you'll need to use a sub-directory like c:\boinc or something. Also, AFAIK it's not allowed to install to your windows-directory.
Splitting data-directory and program-directory has it's advantages, for one thing it's easier to backup, since don't need to backup the unchanging program-directories, but only the data-directories. Also, it's been the recommended windows-usage for many years, to not use the program-directory for settings and so on.
As for why Vista hides c:\ProgramData, ask Microsoft... For anyone looking for the BOINC-data-directory, would guess typing-in c:\ProgramData\BOINC\ and hitting enter in the file-manager or "my computer" or whatever the Vista calls it, and you should likely land correctly, even programdata is hidden...
Hmm, but maybe you'll get into problems with the sandbox-feature of BOINC-v6, if you've installed as "protected mode"...