Could you be more off the ball? Separating user data from program files has nothing to do with Vista, it has to do with common sense in a multi-user system.
Using the Application Data folder for user data has been Microsoft's recommended (and expected) practice since
before XP was released (Win2k preceeded XP). This is
not some magical new imposition on "commercial programmers", because
commercial programmers (the professional ones) have all been doing it for 8 years. Now finally Microsoft put their foot down with Vista and enforced the recommended practice as mandatory because of all the idiotic misuse of the program files folder got their users into all sorts of trouble. They should be commended for this, not insulted. On the flipside, programmers who don't understand this behaviour need to go read MSDN and learn how to program properly for the OS they're releasing software for. mIRC was guilty of this for many years-- but it's finally fixed, and I've since forgiven Khaled.
You did make one good point though. If you don't like the recommended practices of an OS, you shouldn't be developing for it. Heck, if you don't like the recommended practices of an OS, you shouldn't be
using it, meaning if you don't like the idea of an appdata folder, you should be using Win98 or prior (for Microsoft products, anyway).
