We are an Independent Software Developer and have developed COM Server application on Windows XP. Once the Server application is installed, user needs to configure it with another executable and the settings are then stored in the configuration file ServerName.CFG in the application directory in /Program Files.
My questions are related to making our application UAC compliant for Vista and Windows 7:
1) Should we create the installation package for Admin user or for Standard User?
2) If Admin User does the installation and runs our server configuration utility, are there any issues with UAC and writable configuration file in /Program Files?
3) If Standard User does the installation, is there a way to be UAC compliant and still keep the configuration file ServerName.CFG in /Program Files? My guess is no.
4) It makes sense to keep configuration files together with the applications. Are the files with extensions of *.CFG or *.config treated in any special way by UAC to allow for that?
5) If we cannot keep the configuration file in the /Program Files, where should it be kept and how will the application find it?
6) What about the idea of having another control file in /Program Files directory, that only the user can edit manually, and which contains the path to ServerName.CFG?