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Pretty simple idea. When you are creating installers, you are allowed to install files in many different locations. Including lots of system locations.
But for some reason, Public Documents is not one of these destinations. It should be.
Because its not in the list, I need to go through some annoying workarounds which I don't totally trust.
At install time, the MSI uses system folder properties, some of which happen to map to environment variables, but not all environment variables are mapped by system folder properties.
More on the Public Documents environment variable:
CSIDL_COMMON_DOCUMENTS
The file-system directory that contains documents that are common to all users. A typical path in Windows XP is C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents. A typical path in Windows Vista or Windows 7 is C:\Users\Public\Documents.