Fixed Installation Path
If a Windows program is programmed to assume it is always installed to C:\Program Files\Appname and someone tries to install it to a different drive for space or organizational reasons, it may fail to install or to run after installation. This problem might not be identified in the testing process, since the average user installs to the default drive and directory and testing might not include the option of changing the installation directory. However it is advisable for programmers and developers not to fix the installation path of a program, since the default installation path is different in different natural languages, and different computers may be configured differently. It is a common assumption that all computers running Microsoft Windows have the primary hard disk labelled as drive C:, but this is not the case.
There was a similar problem with the microprocessors in early computers, which were built to expect the computer's initial program code to start at the address 0 of the memory pool (or at another fixed address). This was a failsafe layout for units designed for a narrow field of purposes, but lacked much expandability.
Read more about this topic: Hard Coding
Famous quotes containing the words fixed and/or path:
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—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
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Twisting inside me, made me break the line?
What was the rock my gliding childhood struck,
And what bright unreal path has led me here?””
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)