If you’ve been running Vista for any period, you may well have come across the following error if you’ve installed a software DVD player, or upgraded an existing one, or perhaps have Azureus Vuze or some other Java application with media player capabilities installed:

java.io.FileNotFoundException: C:\Documents and Settings\ReleaseEngineer.MACROVISION\Application Data\Azureus\azureus.config.saving (The system cannot find the path specified)

or
error:failed to create directory C:\Documents and Settings\ReleaseEngineer.MACROVISION\Application Data\Azureus\azureus.config.saving (The system cannot find the path specified)

Well, it seems that some genius programmer, instead of using the WIN32 function to determine the users application data path, has instead hard coded one assuming that the user will be running Windows XP under which creating the above directories might be allowed as all users are super users by default (under normal home-use circumstances).

Well, there is a solution – however it involves editing the Windows Registry.
NOTE: If you’re unsure about what this means or are uncomfortable with editing the Windows Registry directly, ask for help from someone who has, or do a lot of research before you begin. If you break or corrupt your registry, windows may very easily become unusable.

Open your registry editor by running RegEdit from the windows “RUN” command:

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folder

and make sure that AppData is set to “C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming“. (replacing <user> with your local user account name – check the path yourself if unsure).

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folder

AppData should be “%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming“

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Volatile Environment

AppData should be “C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming” (again, replacing <user> with your local user account name – check the path yourself if unsure).

This should solve most of your issues.

I’ve been told that DELETING any registry keys containing the value: “C:\Documents and Settings\ReleaseEngineer.MACROVISION” will also work as the keys will be re-created automatically using default values (the correct default values) the next time a program saves its settings. However, this seems a drastic and possibly unsafe step, so leave it as a last resort if you’re still having problems.

Hope this help you all.