What could have caused this? I have tried looking in the Registry Editor (haven't fiddled with anything in there, just looked) but no result it's the "look" name of the folder that should be "Program (x86)". But instead, it is named "Program Files (x86)", does any veteran here know why?
are you/were you rying to install programs that are in English or in another language (in your case, Swedish)? That's my "likely" finding.
I've had this happen to me on some occasions, all I can guess is some installer left that directory there, but I do know it's safe to delete it.
They should be named Program Files and Program Files (x86), so the question is: "Why isn't Program named Program Files?".
I'm Swedish too and I can explain this. Short explanation; Sloppy programmer. Long explanation; When installation programs install some program onto a Windows system they should refer to a variable which is referring to the default Program Files folder. This default folder has different names in localized versions of Windows. In Swedish it is merely "Program" which is plural, but in Swedish the singular form happens to be exactly the same. In other languages there will be other words. What happens when a programmer instructs the installer to install something to the folder "Program Files", instead of the variable, is that a folder with that name gets created and then installation proceeds. Thus you get both your localized default folder and this English folder shoulder to shoulder in the same directory. I don't exactly remember the name of the variable, but it is named something like %Program Files%. It is obvious that the name of this variable is easily confused with the folder Program Files without the percent signs. Theoretically you could input any value into the variable, like for instance CruellaDeVille, and then all (well, most) of your programs would be installed to the folder CruellaDeVille. But don't do that.
I know this thread is almost a year old, but now I am facing the same issue as I did in Windows 7, but now here, in Windows 8! EDIT: Nevermind, I solved it by doing a Refresh...
... and so, here we go again. Same prob basically... the (x86) folder is named in English (United States). Even though the language is set to Swedish. I'm running Windows 10 Pro 64-bit, build 10586 if that's a help.