I sometimes come across questions on SO about someone having trouble installing a piece of software (recent example [here][1]). Since installing software sounds to me like a general computing topic, not a programming topic, I usually suggest that it belongs on SU.

I've seen comments from those who don't agree saying that it's appropriate to ask such a question on SO if the software in question is directly related to programming (like an IDE). When I looked up [this poll question about appropriate programming-related topics][2], the answer that seems closest to the issue of software installation is [this one][3], which is comparatively pretty low on the list (#12 by votes) of what people feel is approved SO content.

I thought I would ask this question to more specifically address the issue:

**Under what circumstances is it appropriate to ask questions on SO about software installation problems?**


  [1]: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1649245/how-do-i-run-multiple-versions-of-matlab
  [2]: http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/12373/which-types-of-programming-related-questions-are-appropriate
  [3]: http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/12373/which-types-of-programming-related-questions-are-appropriate/12386#12386