Originally Maavis useda normal windows installer to "Program Files" and the media was located in the users Documents. The installer is now not a typical Windows installer, rather like PortableApps installers it's just a way unzip files to any chosen location (though the portable Apps menu systems adds restrictions if used). Further if Maavis is put on a removable device the drive can vary, so the installed path is likely to change when used in other machines or if plugged in devices changes.

The change to portable app was a result of changing to Firefox Portable to avoid clashes with any installed Firefox (though only 1 can be run). This it seems to make sense to take advantage of portability to allow Maavis to be run form a memory stick.

However this does cause some complications

1) The "install to path" presented to the user can be confusing.
2) Skype has to be installed in a specific path relative to MaavisPortable which is confusing for users
3) There is no fixed invariant location for other systems to programmatically find Maavis (see #216)
4) We cannot use .lnk files to run Maavis as they require absolute paths. Rather .cmd files are used, which while more flexible cannot have specific icons
5) The Maavis Portable launcher sets (and later clears) a registry setting to the absolute path for the Maavis Firefox Extension. This is currently found at runtime using %CD% in a .cmd file

The ability to run from the source files or installed files also need to be considered. For example the absolute path to the extension is passed in to compensate for the fact it varies. this could be another ticket

Note the latest Portable Apps installer notes say that installing portable apps to "Program Files" may cause problems.

Related to this is the question if the MaavisMedia folder be so flexibly specified?