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Intuit took some heat for this back around 2001~3, thereabouts. One article on the subject can be found here:

http://www.geek.com/articles/news/turbotax-installer-destroy...

I'm kind of surprised there's software still doing this, and shouldn't Windows and its new and improved security have put an end to these kinds of shenanigans on its side?

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Not if you give the process administrator privileges.

Which you should never do. An application package's installer might need those priveleges, but the bookkeeping application itself should not.

Speaking for myself, I make a point of not running applications with administrator priveleges, except those which have a clear reason. My preferred virus scanner is one example. Installers are another, but Intuit's behavior leaves me much more reluctant to trust a vendor-supplied installer. Fortunately, I don't think those are so necessary, these days...?

The installer is what is probably writing to the unpartitioned space.

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