Is AppData now the ‘correct’ place to install user-specific apps (which modify their own data)?

Not really. The directory that serves as a common repository for application-specific data for the current roaming user. AppData is, surprisingly, for application data, not for installation (Click Once/Silverlight applications aside). You can, and should still install into Program Files, just don’t expect to write into that folder. You can install software into AppData if …

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installing JDK8 on Windows XP – advapi32.dll error

This happens because Oracle dropped support for Windows XP (which doesn’t have RegDeleteKeyExA used by the installer in its ADVAPI32.DLL by the way) as described in http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/openjfx-dev/2013-July/009005.html. Yet while the official support for XP has ended, the Java binaries are still (as of Java 8u20 EA b05 at least) XP-compatible – only the installer isn’t… …

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