Installer Location on Windows

[baconpaul]

Please read this before opening an issue asking us to make the installer location on windows editable.

Surge is a VST3. Steinberg, the owner of the VST3 spec, clearly states here that

The VST3 format has a dedicated installation path all VST3 plug-ins must comply with.

and that location is the location we install to.

This is a change from VST2 plugins (which we can't support due to Steinberg's discontinuing the VST2 SDK and not having an open source compatible license).

While some DAWs disregard this and allow you to have a VST3 custom path, FL - which accounts for a large part of our user base - does not. You can specify custom VST2 paths, but not custom VST3 paths.

As such we are faced with one of three choices

1. Obey the spec strictly and make Surge not even work outside the location, blocking users from ever moving Surge if they use non-compliant/more flexible DAWs
2. Allow an installer to do an install which we know would break a good chunk of our users
3. Install a known working Surge but allow users to move things after the fact if they want, and document this in our manual

We chose option 3. It's not a technical reason (making the installer prompt for a path isn't hard), it's a support burden of having the installer allow a broken install.

If you are unhappy with this decision, then please either (1) lobby Steinberg to change the spec or (2) get FL to update their software to allow a non-compliant path. If either of these were to occur we would happily change the Surge installer.

Thanks!