Stop stuff from putting folders in My Documents?

[Bobtheduck]

XP, SP2 3 gigs of ram, AMD 64 processor 3500+ etc

I'm TRYING to keep My Documents clean, but recently programs have been treating it as an extension of "Program Files" and putting anything and everything there...

Adobe puts its preview stuff and updates and everything there, as well as keeping the cache for Encore's DVD building there. 3ds max routes all of its stuff there, it thinks that's where all the assets are (even though they're actually under program files, where they belong) Games have been installing things there... I recently installed the Strongbad game demo, and it put additional files in My Documents... 2 folders, actually. Nvidia has files there, even though I don't even use the onboard Nvidia card, I use my ATI all-in-wonder... Skype, Trillian, EVERYTHING'S putting crap there instead of in Program Files under their own folders...

This hasn't always been the case, and on most of the computers I've used, this ISN'T the case, so how can I fix this so these files are installed elsewhere, so My Documents will actually be navigatable again? I can fix 3ds Max, though I wish that when I installed programs, it didn't default to this... It's actually pretty stupid, because My Documents can only be accessed from an admin or from the user under whose account it's for. And I don't mean I install something, and it asks me if I wanna install to My Documents... I mean, it installs the main program to Program Files and it just throws all this extra crap in My Documents...

[termyt]

I would assume that is a registry setting. I'm not sure where to look though, though, so sorry for not being very helpful.

[Etoh*the*Greato]

You could probably adjust that under the settings for each individual program.